SECRET LIFE OF BEES, THE

Fourteen-year-old Lily Owens lost her beloved mother when she was only four-under tragic circumstances clouded by time and secrecy. She later found a fiercely protective "stand-in," her abusive father's outspoken housekeeper, Rosaleen. Ignoring differences in age and color-and the fact that racial hatred seethed during the summer of 1964 in rural South Carolina-these two unlikely companions set off on a seemingly aimless pilgrimage that ends at the home of a trio of eccentric bee-keeping black sisters.