Ambrose Mensch

Ambrose can be considered the protagonist of many chapters in the book. The first time readers meet Ambrose is when he is explaining how he did not have a name for the first few months of his life. When a swarm of bees hovered over his face when he was nursing against his mother’s chest, he was not stung. This phenomenon, accompanied by a birthmark on his face that resembled a bee, earned him his name – after Saint Ambrose who was also swarmed by bees as a youngster but not stung. Readers see Ambrose again around the age of ten when he deals with older bullies in his neighborhood and once again at the age of thirteen when he visits Ocean City, Maryland.

Ambrose deals with several universal issues that accompany growing up, such as envying his older brother and grappling to make sense of his...