Rating: 
Summary: An easy read with a very powerful message
Review: There's a hopefulness to this novel that could just as easily have turned to the hopelessness of a "Grapes of Wrath" journey west. Taylor Greer is a genuine hero because she travels through life with the grace that her mother gave to her, and that has nothing to do with money or anything else that is remotely materialistic. I'll never look at "bean trees" the same way again.
Rating: 
Summary: Finding a Better Life
Review: This is the story of a young woman named Taylor Greer who grew up in Kentucky trying to avoid ending up like everyone else in a small town life. She wanted a life outside of Kentucky,she wanted to get away. Taylor Greer heads west in a "55" volkswagon she buys. On her way she stops at an auto repair shop in Tucson,Arizona. Here she finds that all the people there are refugees from Central America. She takes in a little three year old girl named Turtle. This little girl brings a big change to Taylors life because she was looking for a bigger and better life when she left Kentucky. Had this been what she was set to go out and look for? Taylor was taking care of this poor inocent girl who didn't really know what was going on. She was abandoned and all alone with no family. She was trying to survive until Taylor came and saved her from what her life could have been, kind of like Taylor who didn't want to end up a nothing. I think that this novel was well written because it's based on reality and there was really refugees from Central America, from every where and there was abandoned kids without familys. This novel shows that there was that hope for them and someone to look after them. I reccomend this book to anyone that understands what these people went through and that like to read "touching" and based on reality storys.
Rating: 
Summary: The Bean Trees
Review: I had to read this book for summer reading. It was a real drag. All the chapters are very long and boring. I would not recommend this book unless maybe your a bit older and understand the historical information that's in this book.
Rating:
Summary: The world's introduction to Barbara Kingsolver
Review: The story of how Taylor Greer got her name has nearly passed into literary lore. Determined to get out of Kentucky without getting pregnant, Marietta Greer drives a decrepit heap of an old car due west, determined to rename herself after the town where the car stops, she coasts to a stop in Taylorville and thus became Taylor Greer. In short order, she is given a baby she names Turtle, makes it to Tucson, rents a house near Jesus Is Lord Used Tires, makes some interesting friends including a battered divorcee with a pissed-off ex and a little girl of her own, faces motherhood issues - and somehow does it all with whimsical humor.
The Bean Trees spawned an entity called Barbara Kingsolver, a gift to readers and other writers. Start with this one, and then read everything else she's written. She's a national institution.
Rating:
Summary: Fiction that reads like persuasive fact
Review: This family-oriented novel shows us a thing or two about what it means to help others, and to love whether one is related or not. The author's style is delightfully unpretentious and weaves a wonderful tapestry of Taylor's adventurous life on the road, and every-day common events. I couldn't wait to find the meaning of the book's title and yelped when I did. The young adoptee, Turtle, looked at wisteria vines that buzzed with bees and said they were 'bean trees' because long green pods hung down from the branches. 'They looked as much like beans as anything you'd ever care to eat.' We don't usually adopt a child after it has been dropped in blankets on our car seat, but of all the adoption books I've read (including the one I wrote myself!) I haven't seen as charming a way of telling a young child about her adoption as in The Bean Trees. Never mind it's fiction. Taylor says: 'I let Turtle see the adoption certificate and she looked at it for a very long time, considering that there were no pictures on it. 'That means you're my kid,' I explained, 'and I'm your mother, and nobody can say it isn't so.'' The author didn't use the word 'adoption' or became preachy or defensive. No wonder little Turtle looked out the car window as though things out there were a lot more interesting than what she had just heard. Then she entertained her mother with her vegetable-soup song that included, among the beans and potatoes, the people she loved. To top it off, Taylor's mother said: 'I don't think blood's the only way kids come by things honest.'
Gisela Gasper Fitzgerald, author of ADOPTION: An Open, Semi-Open or Closed Practice?
Rating:
Summary: beautiful
Review: i had to read this book for school. i hated it when i first started reading it, but it didnt take long to love it. its a really great book. im someone who judges books by their covers, and i think this one deserves the most beautiful cover on earth.
Rating:
Summary: One of her best books
Review: Fast, fun read. One of her best books. Read also Pigs in Heaven.
Rating:
Summary: Growing Up is Never Easy
Review: Barbara Kingsolver has taken a girl out of Pittman County whose over-ridig cocern is not ending up barefoot and pregnant like her peers and followed her personal oddessy as she sets out alone with a clunker for a car to travel across the country in search of a better life for herself. The car has no windows, has to be kick started, and runs on bald tires, just long enough. Driving through Illinois, the girl called Missy, changes her name to Taylor Greer. Driving through Oklahoma, an Indian woman thrusts a baby into her open car window pleading with Taylor to "just take her." As the story develops Taylor learns to count on the sense of worth instill by her mother, her own instincts, and a growing ability to judge character and make good choices in a difficult world. She is witty, spunky and has enough courage to take on a developmentally delayed child that she didn't ask for, find a job, identify an appropriate place to live and become a good friend to others in need. The Bean Trees is a heartwarming story that is hard to put down.
Rating: 
Summary: in reply to stu
Review: this book was boring, in the end Turtle dies and Taylor, broken hearted, commits suicide. but that was the only good part. i would NOT reccomend this to ANYONE. RIGHT ON STUBERT! hewnawnnwnwaa
Rating:
Summary: A terrible book
Review: This is a terrible book. I do not see how anyone could enjoy it.
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