Little Bee (2008) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters edit see section history

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• Little Bee: A refugee who escaped from her country Nigeria, and came to Essex
• Sarah Summers O'Rourke: English fashion magazine editor whose life is tied to Little Bee due to an unusual encounter.
• Andrew O’Rourke: Sarah's husband who was a a columnist for The Times.
• Nkiruka / Kindness: Little Bee's sister. Her name means "the future is bright."
• Charlie O'Rourke: Andrew and Sarah's four-year-old son. He dresses as Batman.
• Yevette: Jamaican girl who was released along with Little Bee from the Immigration Detention Centre.
• Mr. Ayres: Farmer that Little Bee encounters after leaving the detention center.
• Albert: Farmer that Little Bee encounters after leaving the detention center.
• Lawrence Osborn: Sarah's Lover
• Linda: Lawrence's wife
• Clarissa: A feature editor who works with Sarah.
• The Hunters: Group of Nigerian rebels
• Udo: Little Bee's real name. Her name means "peace."
• Manuel Bravo: Amazing story..
• Sari Girl: Girl wearing a lemon yellow sari that is released from the detention center with Little Bee

Quotes edit see section history

• “If your face is swollen from the severe beatings of life, smile and pretend to be a fat man.”

  Nigerian proverb

• “...Your system is cruel, but many of you were kind to me. You sent charity boxes. You dressed my horror in boots and a colorful shirt. You sent it something to paint its nails with. You posted it books and newspapers. Now the horror can speak the Queen's English.”

  Little Bee

• “Tea is the taste of my land : it is bitter and warm, strong, and sharp with memory. It tastes of longing. It tastes of the distance between where you are and where you come from. Also it vanishes -- the taste of it vanishes from your tongue while your lips are still hot from the cup. It disappears, like plantations stretching up into the mist. I have heard that your country drinks more tea than any other. How sad that must make you -- like children who long for absent mothers. I am sorry.”

  Little Bee

• “Horror in your country is something you take a dose of to remind yourself that you are not suffering from it. For me and the girls from my village, horror is a disease and we are sick with it.”

  Little Bee

• “Nkiruka loved music and now I saw that she was right because life is extremely short and you cannot dance to current affairs.”

• “Our TV was just a wooden frame around where the screen used to be, and the frame sat in the red dust underneath the limba tree, and my sister Nkiruka used to put her head inside the frame to do the pictures. This is a good trick. I know now that we should have called this reality television.”

  Little Bee

• “You live in a world of machines and you dream of things with beating hearts. We dream of machines, because we see where the beating hearts have left us.”

  Little Bee

• “This is the trouble with all happiness—all of it is built on top of something that men want.”

  Little Bee

• “Perhaps at twenty, one is naturally curious about life, but at thirty, simply suspicious of anyone who still has one.”

  Sarah

• “You’re talking to the wrong man. I work for central government, remember? Actually doing something is the mistake we’re trained to avoid.”

  Lawrence

• “Little girls in your country, they hide in the gap between the washing machine and the refrigerator and they make believe they are in the jungle, with green snakes and monkeys all around them. Me and my sister, we used to hide in a gap in the jungle, with green snakes and monkeys all around us, and make believe that we had a washing machine and a refrigerator.”

  Little Bee

• “Sometimes I feel as lonely as the Queen of England”

  Little Bee

• “His face registered nothing. It was as blank as my mind.”

  Sarah

• “A dog must be a dog and a wolf must be a wolf, that is the proverb in my country.”

  Little Bee

• “I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers what us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.”

  Little Bee

• “The war was four years old. It had started in the same month my son was born, and they'd grown up together. At first both of them werre a huge shock and demanded constant attention but as each year went by, they became more autonomous and one could start to take one's eye off them for extended periods. Sometimes a particular event would cause me momentarily to look at one or the other of them - my son, or the war - with my full attention, and at times like these I would always think, Gosh, haven't you grown?”

  Sarah Summers O'Rourke

• “I could not stop talking because now I had started my story, it wanted to be finished. We cannot choose where to start and stop. Our stories are the tellers of us.”

  Little Bee

• “Compromise, eh? Isn't it sad, growing up? You start off like my Charlie. You start off thinking you can kill all the baddies and save the world. Then you get a little bit older, maybe Little Bee's age, and you realize that some of the world's badness is inside you, that maybe you're a part of it. And then you get a little bit older still, and a bit more comfortable, and you start wondering whether that badness you've seen in yourself is really all that bad at all. You start talking about ten percent.”

  Sarah Summers O'Rourke

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• Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.

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• Death, of course, is a refuge. It’s where you go when a new name, or a mask and cape, can no longer hide you from yourself. It’s where you run to when none of the principalities of your conscience will grant you asylum.

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• Sad words are just another beauty. A sad story means, this storyteller is alive. The next thing you know, something fine will happen to her, something marvelous, and then she will turn around and smile.

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• Horror in your country is something you take a dose of to remind yourself that you are not suffering from it.

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• This is the trouble with all happiness—all of it is built on top of something that men want.

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• So when I say that I am a refugee, you must understand that there is no refuge.

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• You live in a world of machines and you dream of things with beating hearts. We dream of machines, because we see where beating hearts have left us.

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• I am telling you, trouble is like the ocean. It covers two thirds of the world.”

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• I realized that I was carrying two cargoes. Yes, one of them was horror, but the other one was hope. I realized I had killed myself back to life.

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• That disaster, when it is quite sure of its own strength, will announce itself by hardly moving its lips?

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• London: The city where Sarah works.
• Nigeria: Where Little Bee is from and where she meets Andrew and Sarah.
• Abuja, Nigeria: The city that Little Bee, Sarah, and Batman return to.
• Kingston-upon-Thames, England: Home to Andrew, Sarah, and Batman.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

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• Sarah's Missing Finger: The missing middle finger is a symbol throughout the book. It signifies different things to different characters in the book including life, sacrifice, loss and justice.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Chris Cleave (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Commonwealth Writers Prize (Finalist, 2009: Best Book)
• Amazon.com's Best Books (February 2009)
• Costa Book Award (2008: Novel, Shortlist)
• ALA Notable Book (2010)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PR6103.L43 O74
• Dewey: 823.92 22

Notes for Parents edit see section history

There wasn't a lot of foul language in this book - but there was enough that I wouldn't want my children to read it. (At least until they were 18.) This book contains mature themes and subject matter (infidelity, rape, murder) and some graphic descriptions of violence.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Chris Cleave: Author's official website.

Movie Connections edit see section history

• Little Bee: There is a film adaption in the works, although it is not yet up on IMDB. Nicole Kidman is slated to star in it.

More Books Like This edit see section history