Orphan Train Comparison
Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline and Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd are wonderful summer reading novels for incoming freshmen, but which is the better book for incoming Trinity Hall freshmen? Orphan Train brings the reader back to U.S. immigrants’ lives during the 1920s and what it was like to live as an orphan in that time period, compared to how foster children in the present day are treated. Secret Life of Bees brings the reader to a different era, 1960s South Carolina, when people strongly opposed the civil rights movement. Both books focus on the coming-of-age theme; Secret Life of Bees focuses on Lily Owens struggle without a mother, while Orphan Train explores Vivian Daley and Molly Ayer's hardships of being orphans and foster
…show more content…
Orphan Train keeps the reader's interest through the alternating settings and narrators. The alternating settings create a more diverse plot, while the alternating narrative voice provides depth and interest. Also Orphan Train offers many relatable characters, such as Molly and Jack, through their present day struggles.The readers don’t have to be orphan to relate to the book because they may have a friend who is/was in the foster care system or they know the struggle Jack has when he tries to care for Molly. Orphan Train also presents characters that are loveable through their caring nature towards Vivian and Molly, for instance Mrs. Larsen and Duchy. Secret Life of Bees has only one narrator making the story tiresome and losing the reader’s interest. Furthermore, Secret Life of Bees produces characters that the readers would to find unrelatable and poor role models, a prime example of this is T. Ray, and Lilly. They are not relatable to teenage girls in New Jersey today because they is from South Carolina in the 1960s when segregation was a way of life. Orphan Train encourages incoming freshmen to find new books similar to Orphan Train, so that they can test their reading skills and discover new points of view on different times in history, while Secret Life of Bees does not ignite such passion or
Orphan Train keeps the reader's interest through the alternating settings and narrators. The alternating settings create a more diverse plot, while the alternating narrative voice provides depth and interest. Also Orphan Train offers many relatable characters, such as Molly and Jack, through their present day struggles.The readers don’t have to be orphan to relate to the book because they may have a friend who is/was in the foster care system or they know the struggle Jack has when he tries to care for Molly. Orphan Train also presents characters that are loveable through their caring nature towards Vivian and Molly, for instance Mrs. Larsen and Duchy. Secret Life of Bees has only one narrator making the story tiresome and losing the reader’s interest. Furthermore, Secret Life of Bees produces characters that the readers would to find unrelatable and poor role models, a prime example of this is T. Ray, and Lilly. They are not relatable to teenage girls in New Jersey today because they is from South Carolina in the 1960s when segregation was a way of life. Orphan Train encourages incoming freshmen to find new books similar to Orphan Train, so that they can test their reading skills and discover new points of view on different times in history, while Secret Life of Bees does not ignite such passion or