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The Secret Life of Bees

By Sue Monk Kidd (Author)

Paperback published by Penguin Books (Penguin Books)

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The Secret Life of Bees

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About This Book
Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, a heartwarming coming of age tale set in 1960s South Carolina, a multi-million copy New York Times bestseller, now an award-winning film starring Dakota Fanning, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys
Fans of  Kathryn Stockett’s The Help and Beth Hoffman’s Saving CeeCee Honeycutt will love Sue Monk Kidd’s Southern coming of age tale. The Secret Life of Bees was a New York Times bestseller for more than 125 weeks, a Good Morning America “Read This” Book Club pick and was made into an award-winning film starring Dakota Fanning, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys. Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed.

When Lily's fierce-hearted black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the town's most vicious racists, Lily decides they should both escape to Tiburon, South Carolina—a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. There they are taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters who introduce Lily to a mesmerizing world of bees, honey, and the Black Madonna who presides over their household. This is a remarkable story about divine female power and the transforming power of love—a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.
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Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, a heartwarming coming of age tale set in 1960s South Carolina, a multi-million copy New York Times bestseller, now an award-winning film starring Dakota Fanning, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys
Fans of  Kathryn Stockett’s The Help and Beth Hoffman’s Saving CeeCee Honeycutt will love Sue Monk Kidd’s Southern coming of age tale. The Secret Life of Bees was a New York Times bestseller for more than 125 weeks, a Good Morning America “Read This” Book Club pick and was made into an award-winning film starring Dakota Fanning, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys. Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed.

When Lily's fierce-hearted black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the town's most vicious racists, Lily decides they should both escape to Tiburon, South Carolina—a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. There they are taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters who introduce Lily to a mesmerizing world of bees, honey, and the Black Madonna who presides over their household. This is a remarkable story about divine female power and the transforming power of love—a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.
Product Details
Paperback (336 pages)
Published: August 20, 2008
Publisher: Penguin Books
Imprint: Penguin Books
ISBN: 9780143114550
Other books bySue Monk Kidd
(18)
  • The Mermaid Chair

    The Mermaid Chair
    Inside the abbey of a Benedictine monastery on tiny Egret Island, just off the coast of South Carolina, resides a beautiful and mysterious chair ornately carved with mermaids and dedicated to a saint who, legend claims, was a mermaid before her conversion. Jessie Sullivan’s conventional life has been “molded to the smallest space possible.” So when she is called home to cope with her mother’s startling and enigmatic act of violence, Jessie finds herself relieved to be apart from her husband, Hugh. Jessie loves Hugh, but on Egret Island—amid the gorgeous marshlands and tidal creeks—she becomes drawn to Brother Thomas, a monk who is mere months from taking his final vows. What transpires will unlock the roots of her mother’s tormented past, but most of all, as Jessie grapples with the tension of desire and the struggle to deny it, she will find a freedom that feels overwhelmingly right. What inspires the yearning for a soul mate? Few writers have explored, as Kidd does, the lush, unknown region of the feminine soul where the thin line between the spiritual and the erotic exists. The Mermaid Chair is a vividly imagined novel about the passions of the spirit and the ecstasies of the body; one that illuminates a woman’s self-awakening with the brilliance and power that only a writer of Kidd’s ability could conjure.
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    Traveling with Pomegranates

    Traveling with Pomegranates
    A Mother and Daughter Journey to the Sacred...
    The New York Times bestselling memoir of pilgrimage and metamorphosis by the author of The Secret Life of Bees and her daughter. Sue Monk Kidd has touched the hearts of millions of readers with her beloved novels and acclaimed nonfiction. Now, in this wise and engrossing dual memoir, she and her daughter, Ann, chronicle their travels together through Greece and France at a time when each was on a quest to redefine herself and rediscover each other. As Sue struggles to enlarge a vision of swarming bees into a novel, and Ann ponders the classic question of what to do with her life, this modern-day Demeter and Persephone explore an array of inspiring figures and sacred sites. They also give voice to that most protean of human connections: the bond of mothers and daughters.
    Visit Book Page

    The Secret Life of Bees

    The Secret Life of Bees
    From A to Z, the Penguin Drop Caps series collects 26 unique hardcovers—featuring cover art by Jessica Hische It all begins with a letter. Fall in love with Penguin Drop Caps, a new series of twenty-six collectible and hardcover editions, each with a type cover showcasing a gorgeously illustrated letter of the alphabet. In a design collaboration between Jessica Hische and Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley, the series features unique cover art by Hische, a superstar in the world of type design and illustration, whose work has appeared everywhere from Tiffany & Co. to Wes Anderson's recent film Moonrise Kingdom to Penguin's own bestsellers Committed and Rules of Civility. With exclusive designs that have never before appeared on Hische's hugely popular Daily Drop Cap blog, the Penguin Drop Caps series launches with six perennial favorites to give as elegant gifts, or to showcase on your own shelves. K is for Kidd. Set in South Carolina during the tumultuous summer of 1964, The Secret Life of Bees also ushered young Lily Owens, a girl transformed by the power and divinity of the female spirit, into the canon of modern-day heroines. Lily and her fierce-hearted black “stand-in mother” escape the racism of their hometown and find refuge with an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, whose world of bees, honey, and the Black Madonna is mesmerizing.
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    Firstlight

    Firstlight
    The Early Inspirational Writings
    From the bestselling author of The Secret Life of Bees comes a thoughtful, revelatory book of writings on self and spirit Before she won an international readership with her novels, Sue Monk Kidd was best known for her smart, passionate spiritual writings. Now many of those early stories and essays (most of which first appeared in Guideposts) are collected in one volume, organized around thirteen spiritual motifs. In Firstlight, Kidd charts her emergence as a writer and seeker; reflects on her roles as wife, mother, daughter, nurse, and artist; and assesses what she has learned in settings as far-flung as Africa and her own home. The result is an intimate, uplifting book, filled with moments of recognition and discovery.
    Visit Book Page

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  • September 27, 2012
    ROMONKO
    LibraryThing User

    I was given this book by my daughter-in-law and granddaughter to read. I am glad they forwarded it on to me because it is a book that all daughters and mothers of daughters should read. The book is set in the deep south in 1964. This is of course during the time of all the civil rights demonstrations and of Martin Luther King and Malcom X. The book is a coming of age story about a motherless girl of 14 who sets out with her nanny to try to find information about her mother who died when she was 4. At the beginning of the book she lives with her brute of a father. She and her nanny get into some trouble with the law in their home town so they escape. Lily knows only that her mother had ties to a small town in South Carolina called Tiburon. And Lily knows her mother had visited this town at least once so she wants to go there to try to piece together her mother's past. Lily and Rosaleen end up in the home of a negro beekeeper and her two sisters. Finally Lily and Rosaleen have a place which they can call home and where there is love and acceptance instead of anger and bullying. The book continues on at a leisurely pace during the months of July and August. The story of the bees runs through this story of humans, pointing out some of the similarities in the two forms of communal life. Lily does finally find out information about her mother, but by that time she has integrated so much into this warm family of women, that she wants to move on with her life instead of dwelling on the past. This is a warm and wonderful little story that depicts childhood and motherhood in an unforgettable way. It portrays the flaws and foibles of all humans, while at the same time showing the human capacity for acceptance and love. The characters are wonderfully drawn and the time and place of the book so clearly depicted that you feel like you have known this group of women all of your life.

    Show less

    I was given this book by my daughter-in-law and granddaughter to read. I am glad they forwarded it on to me because it is a book that all daughters and mothers of daughters should read. The book is set in the deep south in 1964. This is of course during the time of all the civil rights demonstrations and of Martin Luther King and Malcom X. The book is a coming of age story about a motherless girl of 14 who sets out with her nanny to try to find information about her mother who died when she was 4. At the beginning of the book she lives with her brute of a father. She and her nanny get into some trouble with the law in their home town so they escape. Lily knows only that her mother had ties to a small town in South Carolina called Tiburon. And Lily knows her mother had visited this town at least once so she wants to go there to try to piece together her mother's past. Lily and Rosaleen end up in the home of a negro beekeeper and her two sisters. Finally Lily and Rosaleen have a place which they can call home and where there is love and acceptance instead of anger and bullying. The book continues on at a leisurely pace during the months of July and August. The story of the bees runs through this story of humans, pointing out some of the similarities in the two forms of communal life. Lily does finally find out information about her mother, but by that time she has integrated so much into this warm family of women, that she wants to move on with her life instead of dwelling on the past. This is a warm and wonderful little story that depicts childhood and motherhood in an unforgettable way. It portrays the flaws and foibles of all humans, while at the same time showing the human capacity for acceptance and love. The characters are wonderfully drawn and the time and place of the book so clearly depicted that you feel like you have known this group of women all of your life.


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  • September 20, 2012
    JENNIE_C
    LibraryThing User

    This book has a wonderfully sympathetic young narrator. I was impressed with how Kidd handles the issue of race. The protagonist rebels against racial stereotypes of her time while not being "holier than thou"; that is, she has her own prejudices, of which she becomes aware as she works to overcome them. The most powerful aspect of this book is the sense of feminine community and the protagonist's journey to find the Divine Maternal within. Kidd's language is poetic and eminently quotable. Her characters speak with the simple yet profound wisdom that is acquired from a hard life. While the book has a similarity to magical realism, it avoids the overtly magical; while the book is spiritual, it is a spirituality grounded deeply in reality. This is truly a beautiful book.

    Show less

    This book has a wonderfully sympathetic young narrator. I was impressed with how Kidd handles the issue of race. The protagonist rebels against racial stereotypes of her time while not being "holier than thou"; that is, she has her own prejudices, of which she becomes aware as she works to overcome them. The most powerful aspect of this book is the sense of feminine community and the protagonist's journey to find the Divine Maternal within. Kidd's language is poetic and eminently quotable. Her characters speak with the simple yet profound wisdom that is acquired from a hard life. While the book has a similarity to magical realism, it avoids the overtly magical; while the book is spiritual, it is a spirituality grounded deeply in reality. This is truly a beautiful book.


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  • September 03, 2012
    LINDSEYRIVERS
    LibraryThing User

    I listened to a book on tape of this and I think the readers voice just annoyed me. I think I would have liked it better if it hadn't been for that. I really did enjoy the story though.

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    I listened to a book on tape of this and I think the readers voice just annoyed me. I think I would have liked it better if it hadn't been for that. I really did enjoy the story though.


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