Monday, September 18, 2017

The Way to Bea by Kat Yeh


The Way to Bea by Kat Yeh
  • ISBN-10: 0316236675 - Hardcover $16.99
  • Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (September 19, 2017), 352 pages. 
  • Review copy courtesy of the publisher and the Amazon Vine Reviewers Program.


Review:
I loved The Way to Bea for many, many reasons. First, Kat Yeh writes beautifully.  There are moments when I'd just stop and reread a paragraph just for the pleasure of it.  Her main character Beatrix (Bea) comes back from summer with family in Taiwan to find that her best friend distant and ignoring her.  Bea is heartbroken but she doesn't want to worry or involve her parents.

Bea's mother is a famous artist, pregnant, and deeply absorbed in her latest series of paintings. Her father is a graphic novelist whose latest creation has been optioned for a movie.  Her parents are loving, but busy and deeply absorbed in their own lives and in each other. Bea's learned how to distract them, to keep them for asking probing questions about school and her friends.  She's able to hide her loneliness and the loss of her best friend S.

But Bea's heartbreak and loneliness are so relatable - Kat Yeh captures so well those times that we've all gone through.  Yeh also captures the excitement of the possibility of finding new friends and interests.  Bea's art is poetry and she lives it, loves it, keeps it to show to those she trusts and cares about.  While Bea becomes Poetry Editor of the school magazine, she keeps her own poems for private consumption. She also hides messages and poems in this old stone wall/portal - the poems and messages are written in invisible ink to an unknown friend to whom she shares her heartache and hopes, her sense of who she wants to become and the process of becoming.

The Way to Bea is beautiful -- it captures the joys and pains of the deep friendships of childhood as well as the excitement that comes with learning one's strengths and craft.  Bea's message encourages strength, courage and hope - and also kindness.  It's a book to enjoy and to share.

About the Author:
Kat Yeh is the author of the critically acclaimed middle grade novel The Truth About Twinkie Pie. She grew up reading, writing, and dreaming in Westtown, PA. She currently lives with her family on Long Island, where she can see water every day.

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