Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees

In the book The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, there is a young girl named Taylor who did not want to be like the typical girls from Kentucky. She wanted to go and get out of the small town. She got in her old beat up car and traveled throughout the United States, until she landed in Arizona. When she was there she not only had to deal with herself, but she now had a little girl who she named Turtle. This was not her daughter; instead someone she barely knew handed her off to Taylor. Turtle was not your average toddler, she was what some people call retarded or slow, but Taylor did not even notice that, all she saw was a little girl in need of help. Even though Taylor could not give Turtle a life of riches, she knew she could at least do better than before. Throughout the rest of the book Taylor experiences many events that portray evil. "Turtle's main goal in life, other than hanging on to things, seemed to be to pass unnoticed” (81). Turtle was a mentally slow child. When she was given to Taylor the woman said that her mother had died and that the little girl had no home. Taylor was just being a good person and taking Turtle, so that
She was unlucky in the sense that she had been abused and almost lost and kidnapped. She was in the park one day playing with Lou Ann’s child, when this scary man came up and was going to take her. Her babysitter put up her cane and scared the man away. Turtle did not just forget about it though. She went on not talking to anyone about anything, even Taylor. Taylor had always been very strong when hard or scary situations came upon them. In this case she was not, she was going crazy worried that Turtle would never talk again. She also started feeling sorry for herself, like she wasn’t good enough to be a mother to Turtle. She soon came to realize that she was the best life that Turtle could have right now. Eventually Turtle talked again but it she felt most comfortable with