Rating: 
Summary: Female Strength
Review: I thought The Bean Trees was an incredible book. Kingsolver portrays the strength of women throuhgout her entire book. The relationship that Taylor and Turtle develop shows many experiences that single mothers can overcome. This book is easy reading and can easily pull you inside to feel as if you are one of the characters. Kingsolver does a great job on developing her characters to make them as if they were real people. I really like this book because it shows that women can do anything and should not be looked down upon in our society compared to men. I recommend this book to anyone but I think women will enjoy the book more than men. The book is a perfect example of a well developed buildingsroman. The changes and experiences Taylor goes through develops her strenght and pcharacter as a person. Kingsolver is a great wirter and I found this book very enjoyable to read. I highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Kingsolver does an excellent job...
Review: We believe Kingsolver does an excellent job of protraying diversity in her book, "The Bean Trees." The book displays wonderful perceptions of friendship, perserverance, and compassion. We really enjoyed reading and adventuring with Taylor as she overcame the trials of getting away from a small town life. Kingsolver also does a great job throughout the novel of tying in themes that relate to the real world. We highly recommend this novel for anyone who is interested in sharing an intimate, yet an exciting relationship with the characters.
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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.
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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: 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.
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Summary: One of her best books
Review: Fast, fun read. One of her best books. Read also Pigs in Heaven.
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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.
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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
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