It is hard to imagine a fourteen-year-old girl springing' her nanny
             from a hospital where she was taken after being beaten for the crime' of
             trying to vote. It is hard to imagine that her parents wouldn't be on TV
             looking for her and trying to get her back and trying to get the nanny
             But this is what happens in The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.
             It is fiction, of course, but something like it might have happened at the
             time of the novel's setting, 1964. Back then, equality under the law was a
             new fact of life for American blacks and whites, and some in each race, but
             whites especially, had a hard time accepting it.
             Lily Owens, the fourteen-year-old, is caught right in the middle of
             all that. In addition, she has an abusive father and a deceased mother,
             not the best way for a child to grow up.
             But Lily is grown up, much more than most girls her age. She had to
             grow up fast, despite the care of her nanny, Rosaleen. Rosaleen couldn't
             always be there when T. Ray, as Lily calls her father, is vicious to her.
             And even Rosaleen cannot soothe all the pain Lily feels because of her loss
             of her mother and her miserable treatment by T. Ray.
             It is clear that Sue Monk Kidd admires Lily. Lily survives multiple
             adventures, some good, some not so good. At the end of the book, Lily
             says, "Look at me. I dived into one absurd thing after the other, and here
             I amâ€I wake up to wonder every day." Sue Monk Kidd begins the book with
             Lily telling the tale after it is all over, so she is a bit older then.
             But Lily is wise beyond her years, and it is apparent in every statement
             she makes, beginning at the beginning. And because of the powers of
             observation and the poetic way of telling her tale Sue Monk Kidd gives to
             Lily, it is obvious that the author admires her creation immensely. She
             admires Lily's strength of will, capable handling of her emotions, co...