Little Bee
by: Chris Cleave
This book starts off with the story of an African refugee. She finds her way to America in search of a young man named Andrew who, while on a trip, gave her his business card hoping he could help. After going through a long hard search, she finds him and his family and is relieved. Then she discovers he doesn’t want her there. She is dying to know why and only after a few short weeks, the man finds himself in tough position and ends up doing the unthinkable. “Little Bee” as they call her is very upset and does not understand why anyone would do such a thing. The wife of Andrew, Sarah, ends up taking Little Bee under her wing and caring for her as though she were her own child. In return, Little Bee helps Sarah to understand why her husband did what he did.
S: This book is a story that lead’s its way into a story about the way refugees are treated, not just in their home but in refugee camps as well.
O: The objective is to get to understand that as Americans, we have a damn good life. We should learn to appreciate it.
A: The audience I would say would appeal to a higher educated, older group of people. Mostly woman in particular because Sarah does fight to get what she wants and shows you how she kind of takes over and does the right thing based on her opinion. Higher educated because the would understand it better and they probably already have a base behind the story, which always helps. An older group of people because I mean lets be honest what kind of kid or even young adult is going to say “Oh my god, I just read this book and I feel so inspired! I’m going to go to Africa and help!” Probably not a lot.
P: The purpose of this book would probably be to educate those who don’t really know what happens in Africa. Also, I think the purpose might be just to be an inspiration to people, make people want to help refugees.
S: The structure of the book on an all around level has many falacies. One, it starts off with a story and it leads up to a story that a normal book would have started out with. So, it kind of keeps you in the dark until the very end. Secondly, it changes the narrator, a lot. It goes from Little Bee to Sarah to Andrew to Little Bee to Sarah and back and forth between Sarah and Little Bee.
