The Secret Life of Bees

[cmp librarian]

Kidd, S. M. ([2002], 2008). The Secret Life of Bees. NY: Penguin Books. 336 pages | YA Fiction

“Honeybees depend not only on physical contact with the colony, but also require its social companionship and support. Isolate a honeybee from her sisters and she will soon die.” (Kidd, 2008). The Secret Life of Bees looks like it might be a story about ‘the birds and the bees’. However, this story examines the complexity of relationships, civil rights, and growing up. When faced with difficult situations in life will you lash out and sting someone or fly away to a better place where honey awaits?

14-year-old Lily Owens, lives on a peach farm in South Carolina during the years of the civil rights (1964). She struggles with a terrible, confusing memory concerning the death of her mother. Lily’s mother was shot and killed, when Lily was very young. Now Lily is left with a harsh, ¬neglectful father. Her caretaker, Rosaleen, a passionate black woman who cooks and cleans for Lily and her father, acts as a stand-in mother and Lily’s only friend. After a horrible conflict involving Rosaleen, some vengeful white men, and Lily’s mean-spirited father, Lily decides she is tired of living with her ¬father. She rescues Rosaleen from jail and the both flee to Tiburon, South Caro¬lina. Tiburon is a small town that holds the secrets of Lily’s mother’s past. Rosaleen and Lily seek out a local beekeeper and are taken in by three black women beekeepers who introduce Lily to a wild life of bees, new people, and the Black Madonna who rules over the household as a symbol of the Virgin Mary. Lily hopes to find out about her mother’s mysterious past and who she really was, but first she must stop lying and learn to trust.

The Secret Life of Bees is a story filled with wisdom about life – relationships between people overcoming racial barriers, about mothers and daughters, and the meaning of love. The book has sold more than six million copies, spent over two and half years on the New York Times bestseller list and been published in 35 countries. It was awarded the 2004 Book Sense Paperback book of the Year, nominated for the Orange Prize in England, chosen as a Good Morning America's Read This! Book Club picks, and awarded the 2005 Southeastern Library Association fiction Award. In 2008 the book was made into a movie by Foxsearchlight which won the People’s Choice and the NAACP Image awards for Best Picture.

This book would make for an excellent book club discussion book with either teens and/or adults in the library, after reading the book the library could show the film and have a comparison discussion. In addition, the book would be great in a high school History classroom when studying civil rights and racism.

[gali]

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The Secret Life of Bees