The Secret Life of Bees, a review by Tanna

Title: The Secret Life of Bees
Author: Sue Monk Kidd
Format:  I read a paperback version of the book.
Price:  $14.00.

Summary:
The story begins on a Peach farm owned by T.Ray Owens, where he and his daughter Lily (both white) live and work. He isn’t very nice and doesn’t show affection and is sort of abusive. T.Ray has had a bad attitude towards Lily ever since she accidentally killed her mother. When T.Ray tells Lily that her mother left, she runs away, and along the way, breaks Rosaleen out of jail from the hospital. Rosaleen looked after her along their journey of running away, and also, from when Lily was 4. Before running away, Lily had found a Black Mary picture with ‘Tiburon, SC’ written on it, so that’s where she went. She goes to the house of August Boatwright(who is a black woman of BUZZness (tends to bees and sells honey)), who openly accepts her into the home, which is also home to August’s sisters May and June. Lily and Rosaleen spend their summer there with the Boatwrights, befriending others along the way, and working for August to help keep the honey business afloat.

Characters:
 Lily Owens is a 14-year-old white girl born on July 4th, 1950 living with her unloving father T.Ray in Sylvan. She is looked after by Rosaleen and can trust her with anything. She is also confused about all of the racism that is occurring around her.


Rosaleen Daise is a large black woman who isn’t afraid to openly speak her mind. She looked after Lily after her mother died and has created a strong friendship.


August Boatwright, also African American, opens up her home and welcomes Lily and Rosaleen into it after Lily lies her way into staying. August had cared for Lily’s mother when she was younger, and knew Lily was her daughter right from the start, but wanted to wait until Lily was ready to talk about it.

Theme:  One of the themes of the story is mothers. That theme is shown throughout the book a lot, for example, Lily loses her mother, and when she goes off to find out more about her mom, she learns a lot about herself, and also, meets other women who now acted as mother figures to her. Another example of the theme is the Virgin Mary(a.k.a. Black Madonna) guided all of them through the twists and turns on the rollercoaster of life. 


Strengths- The entire book was just one big strength because it was so well written and had so many lessons and such in it. Another strength was how strong the women were in this book, even though they had less rights in that time.

Weakness(es)- The start of the book wasn’t very attention grabbing and a bit boring.

Ending Thoughts- The ending of the story was excellent and very enjoyable. Some of the things that happened in the end I had hoped for, but there were also some additional things that made the ending not as good. 


Rating: 4.5 chocolate bars out of 5.
Cover Thoughts: The cover of the book suits it very well because it has the honey jar with the picture that led the main character to where she was destined to go. I also liked how there was just a solitary bee on the cover as well because it looked like it belonged there, and without it, the cover would be more bare. 
Appropriateness:
Language: Some swearing that wasn’t too dominant in the book, but there was also some offensive language in the book, too. There was a lot of racism in the story because of the time period it taking place in, which was just when the Civil Rights Act has been passed.
Violence: There was some violence where there was beating and cruel treatment, but it wasn’t too dominant and only in a few parts.
Sexual Content: There was barely any, if not, no sexual content in the story at all.
Mature Themes: Throughout, Lily was finding herself and growing up, but there weren’t really inappropriate mature themes.
I would recommend this book to ages 13 and up. 

11,000 Years Lost, by Peni R. Griffin: A Review by Fluffadoodle

Book Title: 11,000 Years Lost A book review by: Fluffadoodle
Format: Hardcover
Author: Peni R. Griffin
Length/number of pages: 300 pages
Price: I got it at the library, but it's $17.95 retail

Short Summary
Esther is an ordinary girl living in Texas, until she makes an amazing discovery. She finds an 11,000 year old spearhead near her playground. An archaeologist come, trying to find more ancient artifacts, but it's Esther who gets some answers. She find a doorway through time, and gets whisked away to a distant past-11,000 years distant! As she struggles to survive alongside her adopted family, mammoth hunters, she experiences a different lifestyle. One where no next meal is guaranteed, megafauna will kill you, and there is no medicine to help. Esther, with her knowledge of what will happen to the mammoths wants to help, but she also struggles to make her way back home. Esther doesn't want to live her life out 11,000 years from present day.


Strengths/Weaknesses/Favorite Parts, etc
I thought that the description of their daily life was really good, but I think that the gateways between the two times were a little bit strange--they could have been more prominent. I think I might be using that as an excuse though--it's a really awesome book.


Rating (out of five chocolate bars):5 bars-for sure!
Appropriateness: in between fairy princess and vampire because it takes place in the prehistoric times, so nobody is wearing many clothes.
Cover Thoughts: I really like the first cover image, it's very straight forward, even though it doesn't show an actual scene. The second one, I don't like as much. It has too much clutter I think, even if it does decipher a real scene from the book.

A Great and Terrible Beauty, by Libba Bray

The first book in the Gemma Doyle series by Libba Bray is A Great and Terrible Beauty.

Sixteen-year old Gemma Doyle wants nothing more than to go to London and escape hot, dusty, India in 1895. However, after a mysterious vision in which she witnesses her mother’s suicide and is whisked out of the country by her father to avoid scandal, she couldn’t be more miserable in England. Her grandmother sends her to a boarding school called Spence Academy, in hopes of “taming” her. There, Gemma is an outcast, preyed upon by popular girls Pippa and Felicity, and making only one half-friend, Ann, another outcast, because she is poor. So yes, very depressing. Right. Is there a point to this book? Yes. Well, Gemma continues to have visions like the one she had back in India. Creepy omens of death and charming things like that. She finds Kartik, an Indian boy who warms her cryptically to guard her mind against the visions-the “realms” he calls them. And one creepy night, a ghost like child leads Gemma to a cave where an old diary is hidden, about a girl like Gemma, who has visions too. Gemma continues to miss her mother and her father, who, she infers from letters, is succumbing to grief and laudanum. One day, though, changes that. Miss Moore, the art teacher, takes the girls on an unexpected trip into the woods bordering Spence. She tells them about a mystical Order who lives in another world, called the realms. She shows them primitive cave art.


Most of the girls gasp and act horrified, but Gemma is intrigued, because one of the paintings depicts a crescent eye, just like the one on a necklace her mother gave her before she died. On the way back, she catches the mean girl, Felicity, kissing a gypsy in the woods. She agrees not to tell; however, Felicity becomes her "friend" and decides that she, Pippa, and Gemma, should have their own "Order". Through midnight meetings, secrets, and a bit of whiskey stolen from the kitchens, the four girls' friendships take root and bloom. Gemma continues to read the diary from the book and discovers something magical and amazing--a dark and dangerous world, full of secrets Gemma maybe is better off not knowing.


This is a really deep book and very dark, so it may be hard for some people to read. But it sends a very good message and it really makes you think about what is right and what you would have done in her situation.  Libba Bray has a really poetic style of writing, and her style works to create a haunted mood. The characters seem real because they have a lot of flaws.  They come across as real people because they do have their strengths and their weaknesses.  The book says a lot about how the girls are trying to break out of the system of becoming housewives and fulfilling the expectations of a man's world.


This is the first in a trilogy, and all three are really good--read them under the covers with a flashlight kind of books. I rate this book 4 out of 5 chocolate bars.  This first book is rated vampire appropriate for middle and high school students, but the later books in the series are probably death-rated for language, sexuality, and disturbing themes.