The Boatwright Sisters in the Secret Lives of Bees
Katherine Liu!
Professor Wolterbeek!
English 1B!
05/12/2014
Page 1 of 5
KIDD DAY #2 (67-135)
1. In chapter four and five the reader is introduced to the Boatwright sisters and their home.
Find passages that provide a physical description of the sisters, the family dwelling and the honey house. What do these passages reveal about the Boatwright family culture?
The first time Lily sees August, she is described as a “tall, dressed in white, wearing a pith helmet with veils that floated across her face…looking like an African bride” (67). Her face is described as
“corrugated with a thousand caramel wrinkles”, her hair “looking flour dusted” and staring with her
“ginger cake” eyes (68, 69).
June has her “hair cut so short it resembled a little gray, curlicue swim cap pulled tight over her scalp” (68).
May has “short braids that stuck straight out all over her head” and had one of those “odd grins that let you know she was not an altogether normal person” (69). Her hair smelled of “pomade”, “onions on her hands,” and “vanilla on her breathe” (71). “Her palms were pink like the bottom of her feet, and her elbows darker than the rest of her” (71).
The Boatwright sister’s house is describes as a “house so pink it remained a scorched shock on the back of” Lily’s eyelid (67). It is a house right on the “border of the woods” (67).
The honey house is where August and May stay at when they are “harvesting honey around the clock” (76). It gets really “hot” and is full of “cobwebs” (76). Inside the honey house is one bg room filled with “strange honey making machines-big tanks, gas burners, troughs, levers, white boxes, and racks piled with waxy honeycombs” (75). There were rows of “pith helmets with netting, tools, and wax candles hung from nails near the front door” (76). The floor had a thin “veneer of honey” that made Lily’s shoe stick slightly to the floor as she walked.
These passages reveal that the Boatwright sisters are described as a community of strong and
Professor Wolterbeek!
English 1B!
05/12/2014
Page 1 of 5
KIDD DAY #2 (67-135)
1. In chapter four and five the reader is introduced to the Boatwright sisters and their home.
Find passages that provide a physical description of the sisters, the family dwelling and the honey house. What do these passages reveal about the Boatwright family culture?
The first time Lily sees August, she is described as a “tall, dressed in white, wearing a pith helmet with veils that floated across her face…looking like an African bride” (67). Her face is described as
“corrugated with a thousand caramel wrinkles”, her hair “looking flour dusted” and staring with her
“ginger cake” eyes (68, 69).
June has her “hair cut so short it resembled a little gray, curlicue swim cap pulled tight over her scalp” (68).
May has “short braids that stuck straight out all over her head” and had one of those “odd grins that let you know she was not an altogether normal person” (69). Her hair smelled of “pomade”, “onions on her hands,” and “vanilla on her breathe” (71). “Her palms were pink like the bottom of her feet, and her elbows darker than the rest of her” (71).
The Boatwright sister’s house is describes as a “house so pink it remained a scorched shock on the back of” Lily’s eyelid (67). It is a house right on the “border of the woods” (67).
The honey house is where August and May stay at when they are “harvesting honey around the clock” (76). It gets really “hot” and is full of “cobwebs” (76). Inside the honey house is one bg room filled with “strange honey making machines-big tanks, gas burners, troughs, levers, white boxes, and racks piled with waxy honeycombs” (75). There were rows of “pith helmets with netting, tools, and wax candles hung from nails near the front door” (76). The floor had a thin “veneer of honey” that made Lily’s shoe stick slightly to the floor as she walked.
These passages reveal that the Boatwright sisters are described as a community of strong and