The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Summary
The Secret
Life of Bees is set in Sylvan, South Carolina in the year 1964. Lily
Owens, a 14-year old white girl, lives with her abusive, cold-hearted father,
T. Ray. When Lily was 4-years old, her mother was killed in a tragic accident. The
moment her mother died haunts Lily, undoubtedly feeling great regret as she
remembers grabbing hold of a gun and hearing an explosion go off. Rosaleen, the
maid who works for T. Ray, acts as a stand-in mother for Lily and helps T. Ray
raise her. Lily struggles to accept her home life and feels the need to break
free and travel to Tiburon, South Carolina, a location that was written on the
back of a picture that belonged to her mother. She travels there with Rosaleen,
and they end up finding out where the picture that belonged to her mother
originated. Lily and Rosaleen wind up at a house belonging to three women,
sisters, who are beekeepers. In spending time with the women, she learns
different life lessons from each. Lily faces obstacles that range from societal
obstacles to inner struggles that she must learn how to overcome. By living
with the women, Lily learns how to forgive herself for what happened when she
was a child, and forgive her father who was abusive to her.
Biography
Sue Monk Kidd was raised in the small town of Sylvester,
Georgia, a place that deeply influenced the writing of her first novel The
Secret Life of Bees. She graduated from Texas Christian University in 1970
and later took creative writing courses at Emory University and Anderson
College, as well as studying at Sewanee, Bread Loaf, and other writer’s
conferences. In 2016, TCU conferred on her an honorary doctor of letters
degree.
In her forties, Kidd turned her attention to writing fiction. When
her first novel, The Secret Life of Bees, was published by Viking in
2002, it became a genuine literary phenomenon, spending more than 2½ years on
the New York Times bestseller list. It has been translated into 36
languages and sold more than 8 million copies worldwide. Bees was named
the Book Sense Paperback Book of the Year in 2004, long-listed for the 2002
Orange Prize in England, and won numerous awards. For over a decade, the novel
has been produced on stage by The American Place Theater, and in 2008 it was
adapted into a movie by Fox Searchlight, which won the People’s Choice award
for best movie and the NAACP Image award for best picture. The novel is
taught widely in middle school, high school, and college classrooms.
Rationale
This is one of my favorite books. I first read this book my
senior year of high school when I just begun to actually enjoy English class. I
didn’t personally connect with the characters in any particular way, per say,
just the overall writing of the book. There is a ton of imagery and I am a very
visual learner so it made it an easy, extremely enjoyable read. There is a
great deal of powerful themes in this book that would make for great discussion
and overall lesson ideas. The book dives deep into racism, abusiveness, mental
illness, and is a great example of a “coming of age” novel. There would be a
lot of “teaching moments” presented while reading this book.
Teaching
ideas (Grades 11-12):
1. This book
serves as a great coming of age novel. Students can be taught the coming of age
elements a novel has with this book and then connect it to other books they
have read with the same elements.
2. This book is
heavy on themes. It would be a great opportunity to teach theme for the first
time or to reiterate the importance of theme.
3. Because of
the time period the book is set in, this book would be great to pair with a
unit on the Civil Rights era.
Obstacles
There are a few obstacles in this book. First, Lily’s father
abuses her both verbally and physically. Students who have faced abuse might
have trouble reading the scenes where abuse occurs. Second, two characters pass
away from suicide. The first is only mentioned, and the second time it occurs
the scene is described in a non-gory way. Still, this could be triggering for
some students, so I would need to have a conversation about it and set up
resources if they needed it. The third and most important obstacle (in my
opinion) is that this story is told from Lily’s perspective, a young white
woman. For the students to gain a better idea about what happened during the
Civil Rights era, they would need to have a first person text written from the
perspective of a person of color. While there are many characters of color, the
reader never gains a true first person experience from them. Parents might have
difficulty with the last main obstacle, the Black Madonna, who the women
worship. As far as religion goes, I don’t think this would be a huge obstacle
to get over. Their religion is mainly made up, and it can be looked at in a
way that focuses on the relationship the women have with the Black Madonna,
rather than the fact that it is apart of their religion.
References:
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