Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees The Chaffey College Book 1999
CHAPTER EIGHT
"The Miracle of Dog Doo Park"
Visitors Since 8/10/99
Last Update
5/1/00
Discussion Questions
Why is Lou Ann crying at the zoo?
What do Lou Ann and Taylor learn about Turtle at the zoo?
Why was Lou Ann upset with her brother's marriage?
What was Granny Logan's opinion of Lou Ann's brother's marriage? Is this a logical opinion? Why or why not?
Why is Taylor upset with her mom?
What is the symbolism of the bird in the cactus?
What has been wrong with Turtle?
What is the symbolism of Roosevelt Park being named after Eleanor Roosevelt?
What is the symbolism of the turtles having sex at the zoo?
What is the "Miracle of Dog Doo Park"?
What does the wisteria symbolize?
New Characters
April "Turtle" (discovery of Turtle's name)
Alice Jean Stamper Greer
Rachel
Harland Elleston
Ernest Jakes
Terry
Jill
Dr. Pelinowsky
Granny Logan
She-Wolf Who Hunts by the First Light
Idioms, Slang, and Difficult Words
constitutional
tutti-frutti
in a tither
constellation
scenario
Cultural and Historical Allusions
General Hospital
Marlboro man
"X and Y Sitting in a Tree"
Eleanor Roosevelt
foster care
foster mother
wing-tip shoes
skateboards
Burpee's Catalogue
"Blue Bayou"
Bermuda shorts
Blazer with four-wheel drive
succotash
Medical, Natural, and Geographic Allusions
Sugar peas
EKG
Wisteria vines
torture by cigarette
measles
scabies
polio
x-rays
spiral fibular fracture
"Failure to Thrive" syndrome
cactus
duck
senile
arthritic
seahorse
knucklebone
cartilage
carpals
metacarpals
psychomotor development
blackbirds
macaw
Tucson Zoo
Great Quotes
Page numbers from the large-sized paperback edition
"All winter Lou Ann had been telling me they were wisteria vines. They looked dead to me, like everything else in the park, but she always said, 'Just you wait.'
And she was right. Toward the end of March they had sprouted a fine, shivery coat of pale leaves and now they were getting reading to bloom. Here and there a purplish lip of petal stuck out like a pout from a fat green bud .... You just couldn't imagine where all this life was coming from. It reminded me of that Bible story where somebody or other struck a rock and the water poured out. Only this was better, flowers out of bare dirt."
(114)
"'Can I tell you something?' I said. 'I think you talk so beautifully. Ever since I met you I've been reading the dictionary at night and trying to work words like constellation and scenario into the conversation.'" (117-8)
"In the dark negatives I could see Turtle's thin white bones and her skull, and it gave me the same chill Lou Ann must have felt to see her living mother's name carved on a gravestone. I shivered inside my skin." (123)
"There was a cactus with bushy arms and a coat of yellow spines as thick as fur. A bird had built her nest in it. In and out she flew among the horrible spiny branches, never once hesitating. You just couldn't imagine how she'd made a home in there." (124)