The Bean Trees: A Novel

Barbara Kingsolver

Mar 2009 · Sold by Harper Collins

About this ebook

“The Bean Trees is the work of a visionary. . . . It leaves you open-mouthed and smiling.”  — Los Angeles Times

A bestseller that has come to be regarded as an American classic, The Bean Trees is the novel that launched Barbara Kingsolver’s remarkable literary career.

It is the charming, engrossing tale of rural Kentucky native Taylor Greer, who only wants to get away from her roots and avoid getting pregnant. She succeeds, but inherits a three-year-old Native American girl named Turtle along the way, and together, from Oklahoma to Arizona, half-Cherokee Taylor and her charge search for a new life in the West. Hers is a story about love and friendship, abandonment and belonging, and the discovery of surprising resources in seemingly empty places.

This edition includes a P.S. section with additional insights from the author, background material, suggestions for further reading, and more.

Ratings and reviews

A friend gave me this book to read and she insisted that I read it right away. I was a little reluctant but I was glad I decided to give it a chance. It is a captivating story of a young outspoken girl and her life-changing road trip. It is written in a real-life way and keeps the reader interested with a colorful dialogue. I would recommend it to anyone who likes a good storyline and interesting word structure.

When people ask me what are a few of my favorite books, this is one that comes to mind. The writing is superb, the words are strung together so brilliantly that you can have a clear picture of everything happening. And lil turtle is able to warm anyones heart. This book has everything needed to be a true classic.

I love, love, love anything Barbara Kingsolver! So glad I came across this story as one I had not yet read. What a joy! Though her first novel, it resonates everything that is Kingsolver. All emotions, senses, feelings physical and non-physical, parts of us we did not know we had (nor have words for) are all on alert. I must re-read Pigs in Heaven..... Now!

About the author

Barbara Kingsolver was born in 1955 and grew up in rural Kentucky. She earned degrees in biology from DePauw University and the University of Arizona, and has worked as a freelance writer and author since 1985. At various times she has lived in England, France, and the Canary Islands, and has worked in Europe, Africa, Asia, Mexico, and South America. She spent two decades in Tucson, Arizona, before moving to southwestern Virginia where she currently resides. Her books, in order of publication, are: The Bean Trees (1988), Homeland (1989), Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike (1989), Animal Dreams (1990), Another America (1992), Pigs in Heaven (1993), High Tide in Tucson (1995), The Poisonwood Bible (1998), Prodigal Summer (2000), Small Wonder (2002), Last Stand: America’s Virgin Lands, with photographer Annie Griffiths (2002), Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (2007), The Lacuna (2009), Flight Behavior (2012), Unsheltered (2018), How To Fly (In 10,000 Easy Lessons) (2020), Demon Copperhead (2022), and coauthored with Lily Kingsolver, Coyote's Wild Home (2023). She served as editor for Best American Short Stories 2001. Kingsolver was named one the most important writers of the 20th Century by Writers Digest, and in 2023 won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel Demon Copperhead. In 2000 she received the National Humanities Medal, our country’s highest honor for service through the arts. Her books have been translated into more than thirty languages and have been adopted into the core curriculum in high schools and colleges throughout the nation. Critical acclaim for her work includes multiple awards from the American Booksellers Association and the American Library Association, a James Beard award, two-time Oprah Book Club selection, and the national book award of South Africa, among others. She was awarded Britain's prestigious Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize) for both Demon Copperhead and The Lacuna, making Kingsolver the first author in the history of the prize to win it twice. In 2011, Kingsolver was awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for the body of her work. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has two daughters, Camille (born in 1987) and Lily (1996). She and her husband, Steven Hopp, live on a farm in southern Appalachia where they raise an extensive vegetable garden and Icelandic sheep.