The AML Online Book Club will meet June 25, (Sunday), 7pm Mountain time. We will be discussing Mikayla Orton Thatcher’s memoir, Beehive Girl. Mikayla will be joining us for the discussion.
Publisher’s blurb:
Mikayla Thatcher’s Beehive Girl (BCC Press, 2023) is an exceptionally smart, funny, and full-hearted peek into a forgotten Young Women’s program in use from 1915 to 1970. Part memoir, part project book (think Rachel Held Evans’ A Year of Biblical Womanhood, Jana Riess’ Flunking Sainthood, and Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project), we follow along with Thatcher as she documents her personal journey fulfilling the original Beehive Girls’ requirements as a modern adult. She works on skills like making a piece of furniture; caring for a hive of actual bees (which enthralled me and had me scrambling to learn more); milking a goat, ‘doing at least one good turn daily,’ and writing essays about Latter-day Saint women. As part of the program she wrote her own hymn! (Bonus: she includes an additional hymn she co-wrote with her husband that is in all sincerity my favorite hymn of all time.)
Because Thatcher didn’t automatically know how to do these skills, we also get to meet the mentors and friends who helped her, and those relationships were so tender to witness. Through the lens of the project we watch as she finishes her science PhD, moves away from her homeland, and cares for her young daughter in a new place.
You can read two free chapters here.
Thatcher’s writing is so warm and poignant. I often found myself laughing at an aside before tearing up at the beautiful language, experiences, and memories in the next lines that pulled out memories of my own. Beehive Girl is so, so special. I want everyone with any relationship to Mormonism to read it. And the backmatter! It deserves ALL of the heart eyes and more.
—Rachel Hunt Steenblik, author of Mother’s Milk and I Gave Her a Name
Last month we discussed Michael Fillerup’s “The year they gave women the priesthood”, a novella from his collection The year they gave women the priesthood and other stories (Signature Books, 2022). However, we told Michael the wrong time, so he wasn’t able to join us. So on June 25, Michael will be joining us as well. After our discussion of Beehive Girl, we will also have an opportunity to ask Michael questions about his story.
The discussion will be held on Zoom. Please ask for a Zoom link by replying to this post.