The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver is a short chapter book aimed at grade school kids. Today I spent the morning, afternoon and evening in the hospital with my roommate so I was left to spend the day reading. This ended up being a great time for me to sit and read and think about things. After reading this novel, I caught on to some important things that have been a trend in most the chapter book for kids, social issues. For example, in The Bean Tree, many issues regarding illegal immigration, rape, suicide, and adultery are introduced. I believe that as a writer for this certain age of pre-teen kids, there must be an awareness of these sensitive issues. Many times parents do not sit their children down and discuss hard issues like these with their them, so they are left to learn about them elsewhere. Well, it seems that children's writers have taken the liberty of teaching the kids through their works of fiction about these topics. Even if the book does not go into full detail about them, this allows a door to be opened in the classroom for further discussions with the teacher on these social issues. Truly, I think this is a smart move, and I applaud the writers like Barbara Kingsolver for being bold enough to talk about these taboo topics in their novels. If they do not, who will?
Book 11: The Bean Trees
Author: Barbara Kingsolver
Picture Book?: No
Posting Date: April 26, 2008
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