Bumblebee Season by Eileen Garvin

BUMBLEBEE SEASON by Eileen Garvin (Crow Talk) is the sequel to her debut novel The Music of Bees. She provides an update on the progress that wheelchair-bound Jake Stevenson is accomplishing with his bee hives and Queen of G Honey business located near the Hood River in Oregon. But there is much more to the story as Garvin introduces us to other characters. One is Abigail Elizabeth Plue, a young teaching assistant at the local university; she is interested in insects and nature, but she has difficulty with self-regulation and cooperating with others, resulting in a transfer to study bees. Flaco (“skinny”) is the nickname of Sebastian Santiago Luna Lopez; he’s only fourteen and has been sent North (entering the US without papers) by his mother to keep him away from the cartel in his hometown. Along with Jake, each is struggling with personal issues and rejection by a loved one, but Garvin unites them through a shared desire to protect the environment and a growing respect and care for each other. Belonging and community are key ideas in this book which she has dedicated to “anyone who’s ever longed for home.” BUMBLEBEE SEASON received a starred review from Booklist (“Undoubtedly inspired by her own experiences as an Oregon beekeeper, Garvin is a master at creating hive-like communities vibrating with characters readers will enthusiastically embrace.”).

Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

 INFINITE COUNTRY by Patricia Engel is one of my favorite books of the year so far and I believe the characters and action will also appeal to our students. Engel tells the story of Talia, a teenager who escapes from a rural correctional facility in Colombia in order to return to her father, Mauro, in Bogota. There, she hopes to board a plane and be reunited with her siblings and mother, Elena, who live in the United States. Talia, too, was born in the US, but her father was deported shortly afterwards and with three young children, her mother had little choice but to send Talia to be raised by her abuela. Engel shifts time and narrators to offer thought-provoking perspective on immigration (“… that’s the thing about being paperless. This country locks you in until it locks you out”) and on family relationships. At one point, Elena muses, “She blamed herself for displacing her own children, especially her girls. Karina and Talia, binational, each born in one country and raised in another like repotted flowers, creatures forced to live in the wrong habitat.” The writing is superb and INFINITE COUNTRY received starred reviews from Bookist, Kirkus and Publishers Weekly (“sharp, unflinching narrative teems with insight”).