52 pages • 1-hour read
Honey
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of parent death and childhood grief.
Melody Bishop
Melody Bishop is the fifth-grader protagonist of Honey. Melody is a tomboy with short hair, who “wore jeans in the winter and cutoffs in the summer, sneakers year-round, and on top, either a T-shirt or one of her father’s old button-down shirts, untucked with the sleeves rolled up” (3). Melody has a wide vocabulary for her age because her father is a high school humanities teacher. Melody is very close with her father, having lost her mother at birth, which is why when her father begins acting strangely, Melody picks up on it right away.
The novel primarily follows Melody as she seeks answers to the novel’s two main mysteries: who her father’s girlfriend is and what her mother was like. Melody doesn’t know much about her mother because it’s too painful for her father to talk about her. Initially, Melody doesn’t have strong feelings about her missing mother, so “[i]t was not a particularly sensitive subject” (4). However, when Melody meets her mother’s best childhood friend, Bee-Bee Churchill, Bee-Bee begins to fill Melody in on details about her mother. Melody feels “something was stirring, a feeling she couldn’t quite find the right words to describe” (91), and after hearing about her mother’s funeral, “the mysterious feeling got stronger” (92).
When Melody finds and listens to the tape played at her mother’s funeral, hearing her mother’s voice for the first time, she finally confronts the feeling that’s been welling inside her when she confesses to Mrs. McKenna, “I miss my mother” (109). Melody finally grieves the mother she never got to know by engaging with memories of her mother and learning details about her mother’s life and death. Melody informs her dad, “I want to know who [my mother] was. I need to know” (129), and he breaks his silence, enabling them to connect in their shared grief.
Melody’s other large problem is solved in the same scene, when her father reveals that he’s dating Mrs. McKenna, not Miss Hogan. Instead of dreading a life with Miss Hogan, Melody rejoices in the happiness that Mrs. McKenna brings to both her and her father.
Mo
Mo is Bee-Bee Churchill’s French bulldog and the secondary protagonist, whose perspective is centered in several chapters. Mo’s conflict is a feeling of loss, as he holds onto memories of his first family and the confusion and abandonment he feels in their sudden absence, despite it taking place many years ago.
Mo fondly recalls going home with his first family, the large woman and the thin man. His new life was full of love, affection, treats, and attention, primarily from the large woman, who “delighted in spoiling Mo” (41). When Mo received his heart-shaped pendant, “it made him feel like he belonged” (42). However, when the large woman—Melody’s mother—passed away during childbirth, Mo lost his collar and the people he’d considered his family. Mo went to live with Bee-Bee, who was only supposed to take him for a little while, but ended up keeping him until the events of the novel, over a decade later.
Mo spends most of the novel in the apartment attached to the Bee Hive, waiting for Bee-Bee to get home from the salon to feed him and fantasizing about catching the orange cat who hangs out in the yard. Mo has a good life, but he never stops thinking about the life he had before. Mo has a recurring dream about a girl with long blonde hair claiming him and taking him home. He’s certain “This was where he belonged […] If only he knew who she was” (45). In one dream, he spies something shiny in the girl’s hand, and he is “certain that it was something more [than a bone or biscuit], but he couldn’t really say why. Sometimes a dog just knows” (115). Mo keeps the image of the girl until the final chapter of the novel, when his dream becomes reality.
After Melody’s father reveals that Mo originally belonged with their family, Melody, in Bee-Bee’s long yellow wig, enters the apartment and presents Mo with his pendant. Mo “heard the jingle-jangle and knew where he was meant to be” (146). Mo is finally reunited with his first family and gets to return to the house he once knew.
Bee-Bee Churchill
Bee-Bee Churchill, or “the tall woman” according to Mo, is the owner of the brand new salon in Royal, Indiana, the Bee Hive. Bee-Bee likes wearing bright colors, and she has a large collection of funky wigs that she changes out depending on her mood.
Bee-Bee was friends with Melody’s mother when they were both little girls, but when Melody’s mother became famous and started touring, Bee-Bee’s family moved away and they mostly lost touch. Bee-Bee always dreamed of opening her own salon. She went to beauty school, then climbed the career ladder at the only salon in her town. When she won the lottery, she moved back to Royal, purchased the building of the former Frosty Boy, and converted it to the Bee Hive. Bee-Bee works hard and is often trusted with her clients’ secrets.
Bee-Bee plays an important role in helping Melody through her grief about her late mother. When Bee-Bee meets Melody during the opening weekend of the Bee Hive, she talks to Melody about her mother, whose Time magazine portrait hangs on the walls of the salon. After Melody reveals that her father never talks about her mother, Bee-Bee considers whether it’s her place to reveal the secrets Melody’s father has guarded, but she acknowledges, “it was clear Melody was looking for answers to some very important questions” (91). Bee-Bee tells Melody about her mother’s youth, her career, her death, and her funeral. With Bee-Bee’s help, Melody becomes familiar with who her mother was and is able to properly grieve the person she didn’t get to know.
Melody’s Father (Henry)
Melody’s father, Henry Bishop, is a “thin man with glasses” (40) who teaches humanities at the local high school. Melody is very close with her father, and they have silly word games, inside jokes, and routines they’ve established, being just the two of them for so long. Melody’s father is the source of both conflicts for Melody, as he struggles to talk to Melody about her mother and hides his current romantic partner from her.
At the beginning of the book, Melody and her father encounter one of Melody’s mother’s friends at the grocery store, who makes a scene gushing over Melody and crying about Melody’s mother. Melody’s father is uncomfortable, as he is with everything regarding Melody’s mother. Melody feels, “her father never felt it was the right time or place to talk about her mother” (11), causing Melody to live her whole life without knowing much about the woman who brought her into the world.
Melody overhears her father call someone “honey” over the phone, launching an investigation into who this mysterious honey is. Melody and her father usually tell each other everything, so Melody isn’t sure why her father is hiding honey from her. Most of the novel takes place over Memorial Day weekend while Melody’s father is on a camping trip, so Melody must solve this mystery without asking him directly who honey is.
After Melody’s multiple trips to the Bee Hive, with Melody concluding that her father is going to marry her most disliked teacher, Melody confronts her father in Chapter 20, and he clears up the misunderstanding. He explains that he’s seeing Melody’s favorite teacher, Mrs. McKenna. Melody’s father’s arc ends when he realizes that Melody needs and deserves to know her mother, even though it pains him to confront those memories. He promises not to keep secrets from Melody anymore, and in the final two chapters, he reveals that Mo the dog belongs with their family, and the two of them bring him home.
Unlock analysis of every major character
Get a detailed breakdown of each character’s role, motivations, and development.
- Explore in-depth profiles for every important character
- Trace character arcs, turning points, and relationships
- Connect characters to key themes and plot points