Beholding Bee in Mock Newbery 2026

Mar 31, 2016 Ana Marlatt rated it it was amazing

Please don't let this wonderful book get away from you. It is beautifully written and the story will stay with you for a long, long time. I have no idea how it flew under the radar... It should have won every award the year it was published. I loved it and am so happy a friend and co worker recommended it to me. Lovely...! ...more

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Jun 18, 2014 Julie rated it it was amazing

What a gem.

Young Bee has had a rough life. Her loving parents were carnival workers, and died when Bee was just a baby. Another young carnival employee is tasked with caring for Bee until she is old enough to work -- the owner sees dollar signs when he envisions paying customers line up to see Bee's facial port wine stain, a birthmark in the shape of a diamond.

At 12, Bee realizes she will soon be resigned to working the "sneak a peek" booth, marked as a "freak" for life. With the help of a home ...more

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May 20, 2013 Mary Louise Sanchez rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction

1942 historical setting where eleven-year-old Beatrice or Bee lives with Pauline, a worker in a traveling carnival because Bee is an orphan. Bee works chopping onions and helps man the hot dog cart, all the while hiding her facial birthmark or "diamond" as Pauline likes to call it. Bee dreams of having a real home and when an unwanted dog comes into her life and Pauline leaves the carnival, Bee decides to leave the traveling life.

The house Bee finds is almost out of fairy tales complete with tw ...more

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Mar 24, 2013 Tamara rated it it was amazing

Shelves: middle-grade, historical-fiction, choose-kind-title, ghost, books-read-in-2013

“From things that have happened and from things as they exist and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive, and you make it alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality.”

- Ernest Hemmingway, 1958 (The Paris Review Interview Vol. 1) (http://nicolebaute.com/?p=457)

Fiction resonates with echoes and ghosts, literal and figurative, which ...more

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May 04, 2013 Michal Hope rated it it was amazing

Bee is the proud owner of a birthmark, that she tries to hide from the world. Beatrice Hockenberry was abandoned when her parents died in a car accident and lived with Pauline and the traveling show for most of her childhood. Then Pauline is taken away from her and Bee must make a decision to leave her "home" with the show. She takes her stray dog, Peabody, and one of the little pigs, Cordelia as she flees in the early morning light. Finally, she comes to a house that is just perfect for her. Li ...more

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