I first picked up the book
The Secret Life of Bees on vacation in Hawaii because I was bored. Despite my young age and the fact I had a hard time understanding the book, I considered it one of my favorites. At the end of the school year (in 2009) I was pleased to find that one of my summer reading books was
The Secret Life of Bees.
In The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd did a great job of having me connect to the main character Lily Owens. Through rich details, and an intriguing plot line, I almost felt like I could call Lily a friend. Lily lived with her dad, T-Ray. T-Ray usually punished Lily by making her kneel on piles of grits, and constantly yelled at her. However after Lily's stand-in mother Rosaleen insulted three racists in town and got herself thrown in jail, Lily decided to bail her out and run away. On an attempt to find out about her mother, whom she accidentally killed when she was younger, Lily goes to Tiburon, South Carolina. She chooses Tiburon because the town name was printed on the back of one of her mother's possessions. Lily and Rosaleen end up in the home of three African- American, beekeeping sisters named May, June, and August, who Lily names the Calendar Sisters. She becomes part of their world, but wonders everyday if her father will come back to take her back to her original home. However if you want to find out if Lily's father comes back, or if the Calendar Sisters know who her mother is, you have to read the book.--Anonymous Student--
