Product Description

Clear-eyed and spirited, Taylor Greer grew up poor in rural Kentucky with the goals of avoiding pregnancy and getting away. But when she heads west with high hopes and a barely functional car, she meets the human condition head-on. By the time Taylor arrives in Tucson, Arizona, she has acquired a completely unexpected child, a three-year-old American Indian girl named Turtle, and must somehow come to terms with both motherhood and the necessity for putting down roots. Hers is a story about love and friendship, abandonment and belonging, and the discovery of surprising resources in apparently empty places.

Available for the first time in mass-market, this edition of Barbara Kingsolver's bestselling novel, The Bean Trees, will be in stores everywhere in September. With two different but equally handsome covers, this book is a fine addition to your Kingsolver library.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1347 in Books
• Published on: 1998-10-01
• Released on: 1998-09-09
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 336 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Feisty Marietta Greer changes her name to "Taylor" when her car runs out of gas in Taylorville, Ill. By the time she reaches Oklahoma, this strong-willed young Kentucky native with a quick tongue and an open mind is catapulted into a surprising new life. Taylor leaves home in a beat-up '55 Volkswagen bug, on her way to nowhere in particular, savoring her freedom. But when a forlorn Cherokee woman drops a baby in Taylor's passenger seat and asks her to take it, she does. A first novel, The Bean Trees is an overwhelming delight, as random and unexpected as real life. The unmistakable voice of its irresistible heroine is whimsical, yet deeply insightful. Taylor playfully names her little foundling "Turtle," because she clings with an unrelenting, reptilian grip; at the same time, Taylor aches at the thought of the silent, staring child's past suffering. With Turtle in tow, Taylor lands in Tucson, Ariz., with two flat tires and decides to stay. The desert climate, landscape and vegetation are completely foreign to Taylor, and in learning to love Arizona, she also comes face to face with its rattlesnakes and tarantulas. Similarly, Taylor finds that motherhood, responsibility and independence are thorny, if welcome, gifts. This funny, inspiring book is a marvelous affirmation of risk-taking, commitment and everyday miracles.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This debut novel follows the gritty, outspoken Taylor Greer, who leaves her native Kentucky to head west. She becomes mother to an abandoned baby and, when her jalopy dies in Tucson, is forced to work in a tire garage and to room with a young, battered divorcee who also has a little girl. With sisterly counsel and personal honesty, the two face their painful lot (told in ponderous detail). The blue-collar setting, described vibrantly, often turns violent, with baby beatings, street brawls, and drug busts. Despite the hurt and rage, themes of love and nurturing emerge. A refreshingly upbeat, presentable first effort by an author whose subsequent novels will probably generate more interest than this one. Edward C. Lynskey, Documentation, Atlantic Research Corp., Alexandria, Va.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Jesse Larsen
Marietta Greer's mama called her Missy, because, according to family legend, when she was three, she stamped her foot "and told my own mother not to call me Marietta but MISS Marietta, as I had to call all the people including children in the houses where she worked Miss this or Mister that..." Her growing up years in Pittnam County, Kentucky, taught her two things: don't get pregnant, and get out as quick as you can. With Mama's expert training in old-car trouble-shooting, Marietta hits the road in her 1955 windowless, jump-start volkswagen, determined to rename herself after the first place she has to buy gas. Relieved at missing Homer, Illinois, and keeping her "fingers crossed through Sidney, Sadorus, Cerro Gordo, Decatur, and Blue Mound," she "coasted into Taylorville on the fumes." Now Taylor Greer, she discovers that car trouble can change more than just her name: when her rocker arm breaks in Oklahoma, she is "given" a baby; when she has two flat tires in Tucson, she limps into Jesus Is Lord Used Tires, where she begins to learn that her troubles are minor compared to people hiding from Guatemalan death squads. The Bean Trees is written in the spirited language of a Kentucky-raised working woman with a generous heart and an audacious imagination. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14.

Customer Reviews

Ironically it all works out in the end
Have you ironicaly ever been handed something that you were trying to avoid? In this book, The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, "Taylor Greer" or Missie runs or drives from her towns frequent young pregnancy histroy. On her journey to become something better than everybody back home, her fate brings her a child. We experience, as readers, the tradegy going through Taylor's mind as she deals with this new life put before her. Taylors from the small town and now living in Arizona she is eye opened with the racist acts more common in that part of the country. Taylor and the child, Turtle, meet many people who change their life and take small things that seem worthless and turn them into something beautiful. I would deffinately reccomend this book to every young teenage girl or mother. It givs great advice how to deal with different obstacles and many new realizations of our world that are put before the reader. Looking for a book that makes you appreciate yourself and others more? Pick up The Bean Trees and get yourself thrown into the fast moving life of Taylor Greer.

A Remarkable Guide to Life
Taylor is a high spirited and strong willed girl whose whole life has been lead in Kentucky. Taylor had three goals in her life: not to get pregnant, to leave Pittman County, and to change her name. She ended up buying a '55 Volkswagen bug and leaving Pittman County behind. She ends up with the name Taylor which she got from the first town she stopped in. While on the desolate plains of Oklahoma she has a two year old Cherokee child placed into her care. Later on Taylor finds out the girl was physically abused and named the child Turtle after the way she clings on to everything like a snapping turtle. Taylor ends up in Tucson, Arizona where she meets up with a tough strange lady named Mattie who deals with illegal immigrants, a paranoid and self conscious mother Lou Ann who thinks there is nothing safe in the world, and Esparza and Esperanza, a Guatemalan couple, that help Taylor find out who she really is. Taylor is lead through the hardships and wonders of life with her friends. They help her through life in the way that the rhizobia help the bean trees through life.

The Bean Trees Review
In this wonderful book of growth and maturity, many characters are challenged to make choices they would not have made in the beginning of the novel: Lou Ann kicking Angel out for good, Taylor driving Estefan and Esperanza to a safe house, and even Turtle when she talks again after almost being kidnapped. Throughout the book the characters growth and "burials" allows for newer and better things to grow. This is an excellent book that is definitely recommended to other high school girls.