Kathy Andrews is a co-founder of Potato Peel Pie Book Community and writes today about our upcoming August book club, Gene Stratton Porter’s Keeper of the Bees.
“But I don’t know a thing about bees! I don’t know a damn thing about bees!”
James Lewis MacFarlane, recently self-discharged from the hospital, finds himself given a job he never dreamed he would be called upon to perform. He has survived World War I with a terrible physical wound that refuses to heal, walked away from the hospital when he learns he is a hopeless case, and set off on his own grand adventure to see if he can find his own cure. With that, he finds himself in the position to take on beekeeping, though he knows nothing about it.
The Keeper of the Bees is a story of adventures; not just Jamie’s, but most of the other characters in the story as well. It would be nice if we were all able to just go around in our own little world, doing as we please (or not), never having to worry about how it affects anyone else. I’m sure you know that is never the case, and it is clearly evidenced in the experiences of the Bee Master,Jamie, The Little Scout, The Storm Girl, and Mrs. Cameron. Like a Venn Diagram, they all seem to have their own spheres of activity, but they are all connected and affect each other.
How many times in life do we hit up against things of which we know nothing? Our prayers of, “God, I can’t do this, I don’t know how!” have been on the lips of every one of us at least once in our lives. And how many times have we heard the voice of God saying, “Trust me.”?
Here’s hoping you enjoy this story of faithfulness, grit, determination, loyalty, and trust.
Plumfield and Paideia 