5, .2004
E ntertaii ^ ent
A kts ;
T he C lackamas P rint • 7
W/fh Performances by: |gF
j|*Richmonci
School aT 5
*CCC French students will perform CabareCstyle
Trench songs, dance & poems
Tati no dance ^Rjtmo Tropical” with a dance
demonstration,
jjf, " J
’^Fi We' courtesy of the German-American School
Bees' will sweep readers away
Jennifer Trank
¡ he C lackamas P rint
i! Monk Kidd’s first novel,
:d “The Secret 1 jfe of Bees,”
rn from an award-winning
story Sand deserves awards of
n.
thimhe first few pages, the
; floats back to the summer
(64 in rural South Carolina,
we meet Lily Owen, the 14-
•Id daughter of a peach
r who she “called T. Ray
(Se ‘Daddy’ never fit him.”
,:er the death of her mother
(Lily is four, she is raised by
ican^pirited and some-
abusive T. Ray and her®
alack Inanny, Rosalccn.^g
Rosaleen stirs the
• ofvsome of the meanest
; in town and Lily can no
■ tolerate her father’s cruelty,
lee together, embarking on a
:y where Lily will learn the
about her mother’s life and
TaHpg refuge with three
:ric black sisters, Lily learns
rt of beekeeping and the
tanccl of finding her inner
strength.
The story is told from lily’s
perspective and one can’t help
reading with the southern drawl
of a young girl. Kidd elo-^?®
qucntly describes Lily’s sur
roundings and. each of ihefj^
colorful characters in a way
that makes the reader feel as if
they are perched on the limb of a
giant old oak,’ watching the drama
unfold in the warm southern sun.
“The redness had seeped from
the day and night was arranging
herself around us, cooling things
down, staining and dyeing the
evening purple and blue-black.”
Kidd draws on the experience
of spending her own adoles-
Pccncc in a tiny town in
g Georgia and gives the reader a
greater understanding of the
world in which 1 ,ily lives.
“I vividly remember the sum
mer of 1964 with its ... racial
tensions and the erupting aware
ness of the cruelty of racism. 1
was never the same after that
summer.”
Kidd adds dimension to the
story by weaving in tidbits of the
mystical world of honeybees,
offering parallels between the
queen of a hive and the mother of
a family. This is shown through
brief quotes from bee lore at
the beginning of each chapter.
“|The queen’s| true role
is less that of a queen than
mother of the hive, a. title often
accorded to., her. And yet, this is
something of a mockery because
of her lack of maternal instincts
or the ability to care for her
young,” (The Queen Must Die:
and Other Affairs of Bees and
Men).
“The Secret Life of Bees” is a
story about finding strength with
in oneself, overcoming life’s
tragedies and becoming a self-suf
ficient individual, capable of nur
turing and consoling oneself. It
articulates the importance of a
mother in a child’s life, while
revealing that mother figures come
in many different forms.
The only disappointment with
this novel is that the 300 pages will
be over before the reader is ready
to put it down. It is widely avail
able in paperback for $14.
INTERNET PHOTO
Sue Monk Kidd fills her novel ‘The Secret Life of Bees’ with
sweet soul and heartfelt emotion, making it a must-read.
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