Finding Your Voice – A Book Review
What it takes for people of all ages to learn to stand up for themselves.
Kimberly Newton Fusco’s book The Secret of Honeycake is the story of a family of women devastated by war, the Depression, and illness. Living in a house perched high on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, eleven-year-old Hurricane writes daily in her Words of Encouragement Journal given to her by her mom before her mother died. She struggles with “bad school luck” and shyness, has few friends, and races down the beach with her favorite seagull and her dog, Brodie-Bear, at her side. Both parents have died, but Hurricane and her big sister Bronte are surviving, that is, until her sister gets tuberculous like her mom and has to stay at a “resting hospital” for a cure. Hurricane is forced to leave her beloved dog behind and move in with her Great-Aunt Claire in the city.
Aunt Claire has a lot of rules, especially for a kid who is used to spending her time outside on the cliffs and on the beach. Aunt Claire speaks Latin phrases and expects a “brave face” and “courage,” which Hurricane struggles with. She finds a stray kitten, and the local boy selling fish helps Hurricane tame the kitten. She trades homemade sandwiches for fish to tempt the kitten with and gets advice on how to get the kitten to accept her, tips her fishmonger friend has learned from the local veterinarian, who he works with in his free time and hopes will help get him into Veterinarian school.
Aunt Claire struggles as the Depression depletes her funds, and the big family home of her deceased husband is in constant need of repair. She learns to drive a car as she is forced to do with one less house servant. She reads parenting books to learn how to raise Hurricane, which she angrily abandons after reading that “Girls are not able to withstand the intellectual demands traditionally placed on boys.” Hurricane begins to find her voice, and Aunt Claire breaks out of traditional roles when it was pretty difficult for women to do that. For memories of home, Aunt Claire tries baking Honeycake and can’t quite get the recipe right until they return to the house on the cliff.
The Secret of Honeycake is a story that mixes U.S. history and society’s expectations with the strength needed for one family to find its voice and survive. It is entertaining, thoughtful, and engrossing, and it will be enjoyed by adults and children ages middle school and up.
