The Secret Life of Bees
Top selling novel and award winning movie
Sue Monk Kidd
Sue Monk Kidd was born in Sylvester, Georgia on 12th August, 1948. She graduated with B.S in nursing in 1970 at the age of 21. She worked throughout her life as a nurse and later as a nursing instructor at the Medical College of Georgia. In her 30s she took writing courses at Emory University and Anderson College in South Carolina. Her first novel was The secret life of bees published in 2002. Three years later she published her second novel The Mermaid Chair which was also adapted into a movie in 2006. Her most recent novel was The invention of wings which she published in 2014. The novel debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list and was later selected for Oprah's Book Club 2.0. She is married to Sanford "sandy" Kidd and they have two children.
Website: http://suemonkkidd.com/
Story talks about Lily, a 16 year old girl who lives in South Carolina with her uncaring and strict father T.Ray and her nany Rosaleen. Her mother was shot by Lily at the age of 4. Because she hated her father and wanted to know the truth about her mother, she decided to run away with her nany, Rosaleen. They went to town named Tiburon because it was written on the back of her mothers picture. In the town, Lily was lokking for a place to stay and eat but when she was in a local store she saw the same portrait of the Virgin Mary that she had on the picture she carried with her. So coincedantely Lily got into the same house her mother was a long time ago. There she meets August and her sisters June and May. Later in the story they also get to know Zach and Neil, latter marries June in the end. August teaches Lily alot about bee-keeping. While living on thhe farm Zach and Lily fell in love which also shows that the color of the skin doesn't matter. In the end Lily gets to know everything about her mother and also stands up to her father who in the end lets her go.
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So I have read both book and also watched the movie and I can tell that there are some pretty big differences between them. The movie plot compared with book is OK. It follows the basic path of the story and it also display the major, more important scenes. But in the book the Virgin Mary is like another new character which people interact with and know personaly. In the movie she is just a statue standing in a living room. Secondly in the movie Lily never wonders for a second if she really killed her mother, while in the book she does. Lastly the biggest difference IMO is that in the movie the producer never began to explore Lily's realization of other race. In the acual book she loves her black nanny and so she does in the movie, but she doesn't see how similar she and her naighbour relly are. Only after living with August and her sisters does she realize that race in not a thing that makes people different.
Short History of Racism in the USA (African American)
The Death Of Bees Explained – Parasites, Poison and Humans
- Bees jobs are assigned by age
- Bees can calculate angles
- Bees don't always die when they sting
- Bees are the only insect that produce food eaten by men
- A hive of bees will fly 90,000 miles, the equivalent of three orbits around the earth to collect 1 kg of honey.
- It is estimated that 1100 honey bee stings are required to be fatal.
- The queen can live up to five years. She is busiest in the summer months, when she can lay up to 2500 eggs a day!
- If bees go extinct the human race will change drastically
- A colony of bees can contain between 20,000 and 60,000 bees, but only one queen bee