The Secret Life Of Bees Book Report

This book shows a girls struggle with an abusive father, the haunting of her mothers tragic death and the basic struggles of a young teen becoming a women. During a time of segregation in the South, right after Jim Crow laws have been banned and Negros have been granted the right to vote. The book is about Lily’s journey of discovering herself and finding the truth about her mother. Within the first few chapters of the book we discover that her father is an abusive alcoholic, who neglects her basic needs. A Negro housemaid named Rosaleen raises Lily. Through out the years Lily idealizes her and makes her almost like a mother figure in her life. One day Rosaleen goes to register to vote but is jumped by a racist group of white men while Lily is with her. Both get thrown in jail. After

She goes and saves Rosaleen from the hospital and they hitch a ride to (her mothers town) on a Mellon farmer’s truck. Once he drops the two off they both bathe naked in a lake a few miles away from the town she found on the back of the picture of her mother. This seen shows how these two become completely vulnerable to each other. Also how it is almost a cleansing or re birth into their new lives. Once they reach Tiburon they go to a store and the first thing they see is the black Madonna honey label, which Lily had found in with the box of her mothers stuff. She asks the clerk where she can find the maker of this and he gives her the place. When she arrives at the bright pink house August welcomes herald lets her stay for and indefinite amount of time. While there she learns to work with bees and creates new bonds with her new found “family" she learns their ways and begins acclimating to their routine. She is slowly building up the confidence to ask the Calander sisters about her mother but mentally is not prepared