Remember the sweaty-palmed, knee-knocking angst of your first elementary school spelling bee? In Myla Goldberg's debut novel "Bee Season," a young, otherwise unremarkable, girl learns she has an uncanny talent for spelling. Goldberg's wonderfully descriptive prose introduces us to this mysterious and nefarious world of spelling bees.
"Eliza Naumann is an 11-year-old girl in the slow class at school who's a disappointment to her gifted parents -- her father, Saul, a Judaic scholar and erstwhile mystic, and her mother, Miriam, a lawyer with a voracious intellect and a compulsion toward order. While Eliza was never particularly good at anything before, she discovers that she's good at spelling bees. When she wins a regional contest, her father begins to take notice of her -- and she soon begins to displace her smarter, more talented brother Aaron in his affections." -Salon.com
Listen to Myla Goldberg read from "Bee Season."
Bold Type features an interview and a short story by Myla Goldberg.
From "Bee Season" ) 2000, Myla Goldberg. Used by permission of Random House, Inc. No reproduction of this material is authorized without the express written consent of the Licensor.
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