The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, 4-4.5 stars

[NancyJ]

This was such a pleasure to read, especially when mixed in with several heavier books this month. I liked all the books I read by Barbara Kingsolver, but for some reason I abandoned this book several decades ago (I blame work, not the book). I think I would have liked it even more when I was a young mother, like two of the characters in the story. I'm happy someone nominated it for this challenge, because it pushed me to finally read this wonderful book.

This book is about a girl from Kentucky who eventually moves out west and stops in Arizona when her car breaks done. She acquired a baby along the way, which is an interesting part of the story. The combination of wisdom and naivety was often surprising and quite touching. I shouldn't be surprised I suppose, because we can all be smart about some things, and clueless about others.

I really liked the characters in this book. Even the most annoying characters eventually won me over. I think that Kingsolver must be a wonderful mother, based on the way she wrote Taylor's mother, and her surrogate mother in Arizona, as well as the parenting challenges faced by Taylor and her friend Lou Ann.

I would have immediately started the sequel if it was available at that moment (and if I didn't have a pile of other great books on hand). This was a great reading month for me, and I would happily spend another month with the classics tag.