#21

 Book #21 is The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver.  My friend, Anita, was reading it while we were on our girls' trip to UP ~ and gave it to me when she finished.  Barbara Kingsolver wrote The Poisonwood Bible, which I haven't read, but has been on my list forever!  This story revolves about the question, "what makes a family?".  The answer, according to Kingsolver, is the people we end up loving.  It's not easy to make your way in this world and we certainly need loving people to guide us in the right way. 

Good Quote: (page 241) "It's like this, " I told Turtle.  "There's a whole invisible system for helping out the plant that you'd never guess was there."  I loved this idea.  "It's just the same as with people.  The way Edna has Virgie, and Virgie has Edna, and Sandi has Kid Central Station, and everybody has Mattie.  And on and on."  The wisteria vines on their own would just barely get by, its how I explained it to Turtle, but put them together with the rhizobia and they make miracles.

fl: I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Hardbine's father over the top of the Standard Oil sign.  ll: And me.  I was the main ingredient.