Beholding Bee by Kimberly Newton Fusco (review)

It's 1942, and Bee has spent her life traveling with a carnival, working the hot dog stand with Pauline, who took Bee in when her parents were killed. Though Pauline has tried to teach her to love the world and be happy despite their dismal circumstances, Bee's days are shadowed by the port-wine stain on her face that makes customers gawk and say unkind things about her and by their boss' threats to make Bee and her birthmark one of the show's exhibits. When Pauline leaves to work another show, Bee runs away, taking with her a piglet and a stray dog. Finding the perfect house, she is invited in by a woman who has mysteriously appeared to her numerous times over the course of her life. Mrs. Potter and her friend, Mrs. Swift, agree that Bee and her pets may stay with them, but Bee soon finds that her guardians are not exactly of this world. At school, Bee's reluctance to cooperate gets her placed in a special-needs class, where she meets a friendly girl, and she starts piecing together a life that, unbeknownst to her, was really hers all along, since the house she found is the house her mother grew up in and that Bee herself has inherited. The magical realism is a charming explanation for the convenience of Bee's finding not just a home but her rightful home, and Bee is refreshingly raw for a character at the center of such a sweet story—selfish, grumpy, and mean-spirited at times as she gradually learns to feel accepted. Unfortunately, Fusco takes her contrivances too far, with Mrs. Potter and Mrs. Swift not only Bee's ancestors but also overly impressive role models (both of them have heroic pasts) for the literally shame-faced Bee. The result ends up being more purposive than genuinely inspiring, but the piling on of Bee's initial misery may be balanced by the piling on of redeeming grace.