Branham Daniels

Historical Novel Project

10.14.15

Little Bee
Book Synopsis: Little Bee is a fictional novel about a little Nigerian girl doing whatever
she has to do to survive during the oil wars of the Niger Delta. Although Little Bee is the main
character of the book, Sarah ORourke is, in some ways, the sidekick of the story. Sarah is a
magazine editor in London who met Little Bee on a holiday weekend on the beaches of Nigeria
while patching up her marriage with her husband Andrew after he finds out she is having an
affair behind his back. As Andrew and Sarah are walking on the beach enjoying the peaceful
scenery of Nigeria, Little Bee and her sister Nkiruka are running toward the beach trying to
avoid being killed by Nigerian rebels who have just killed every man, woman, and child in their
village. This is the point in which the ORourkes meet Little Bee. This is also a perfect analogy
to the way Nigerians and the British view the world. On one hand, the two little Nigerian girls
see two white people walking happily on the beach and see them as their only hope to avoid
death. On the other hand, the white British couple only sees peacefulness while their is a civil
war going on right under their nose. Throughout the book this point of view is very evident in
that the Nigerian girl wants to become British in many ways to survive but the British claim they
do not want to have anything to do with the worlds problems because they have enough
problems of their own. The reader is drawn into the book and kept on the edge of their seat
hoping that Little Bee will make it through.
The plot is set in both Nigeria and England. As stated previously, Little Bee is the main
character who has fled Nigeria to avoid being killed by rebels of her government. Sarah
ORourke becomes friends and nearly family with Little Bee as she makes it her job to save
Little Bee from deportation back to Nigeria after nearly seeing her killed upon their first meeting.
Sarahs husband, Andrew, is a journalist for the Times in London and represents the average
western civilization man who at first glance sees the problems in other parts of the world as not
his own. He will later come to regret this viewpoint and it will eat away at him out of guilt until
his death. Charlie ORourke, the four year old son of Sarah and Andrew, represents the world as
viewed by children. He dresses up as Batman every single day in an attempt to rid the world of
baddies and save the world. Lawrence, an employee of the Home Office in London, represents
the majority of British government it seems. Sarah is having an affair with Lawrence behind
Andrews back while Lawrence, too, is married with children. When Lawrence learns of the
refugee that Sarah is harboring, he continuously urges Sarah to call the police and report her as
an illegal immigrant. Lawrence sees the entire situation as a Nigerian problem and not a British
one. Lawrence states that the Nigerians and other refugees to England are only their to feed on
their resources.
Author Biography: The author, Chris Cleave, is a regular newspaper and broadcast
contributor to the cultural debate on parenting, literature, and human rights. Cleave has his
books published in thirty languages. Little Bee is a New York Times #1 Best Seller and, when
reading the book, one can see that Cleave has a love for human rights and a particular interest in
refugees and education. Cleave was born in London and currently lives in Kingston-uponThames with his French wife and three children. This makes the views of the British in the book
very authentic because he is one of them and even lives in the same suburb as the characters in

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the book. Cleave studied Psychology at Balliol College, Oxford. He is also a columnist for The
Guardian Newspaper in London. Throughout the book, you can get a glimpse of the views Chris
shares on immigration and globalization along with the effects of natural resources such as crude
oil and tea from Nigeria for the consumption of Brits rather than the consumption of Nigerian
citizens. The true story behind the book, says Cleave, is about Manuel Bravo. Bravo was an
Angolan man who fled to England in 2001 with his son and asked for asylum because he and his
family were in danger of being killed. Cleave uses the book, Little Bee, to inform the world of
this issue of Immigration Removal Centres in England and expose them showing his love for
human rights and refugees.
Context & Resources:
Social, Cultural, Historical Context:
Socially: There is currently an issue in the UK, and even the U.S. and other western
countries, in which people from other cultures are seen as immigrants who do not belong.
There is a feeling that, as noted in the book as well as investigative videos, that immigrants
are becoming a drain on the economy and resources within and outside of the detention
centers.
Culturally: There is a sense of family illustrated by the Nigerian refugees in this book that
is taken for granted in the developed countries such as Great Britain. Little Bee was
willing to die with her sister in order to save themselves from the rebels. In contrast, Sarah
is having an affair behind her husband, Andrews back with another married man who is
doing the same behind the back of his wife, Linda, and their children. When Little Bee
arrives in Kingston-upon-Thames, she offers to stay with the grieving family and treat
them, Sarah, as her mother, and Charlie, as her brother. The book illustrates a stronger
sense of family and loyalty for the refugees. Also, the refugees are willing to die by
suicide if and when they are forced to go back home. Horror, for the refugees, is a sickness
that they are all infected with and live with on a daily basis. For the westerners, as Little
Bee points out, horror is something that they go and witness in the movie theaters to
reassure themselves that they live in a safe environment.
Historically: This is happening as we speak in the UK and even the U.S. Immigration is
currently one of the hottest topics in the U.S. Presidential race and is being debated about
in both the Democratic and Republican Debates. Also, relative to this story exactly, the
issue of Nigerian crude oil is currently impacting the entire world. Nigeria is the United
States 5th largest oil supplier.
How is the text doubly historical?:
The text was written during the 2000s which is exactly during the time in which the story
takes place as well as the current events in relation to British immigration situations. The
author, Chris Cleave is also a citizen of the UK and writes for a popular news outlet, The
Guardian.
NCSS Thematic Strands:

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Historical Novel Project

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1: Culture
3: People, Places, & Environments
4: Individual Development & Identity
6: Power, Authority, & Governance
7: Production, Distribution, & Consumption
10: Global Connections

State Standards & Indicators:

Standard WG - 4: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the characteristics of
culture, the patterns of culture, and cultural change.
Indicator:
WG 4.1 Identify the characteristics of culture and the impacts of cultural beliefs on
gender roles and the perception of race and ethnicity as they vary from one region to
another (e.g., legal rights for women in the Middle East and South Asia).
Key Themes, Events, & Periods:
British Immigration Acts
British Immigration Detention Centers
Nigerian Oil Crisis
Refugees Seeking Asylum in Developed Countries
What would a teacher need to know? (NCSS Strands / St. Standards):
A teacher should have an understanding of the history of immigration in Great Britain.
Particularly, it is important that a teacher understand some examples of refugees and
asylum seekers who were deported from the UK after spending some time in Immigration
Removal Centers and Immigration Detention Centers. It also may be useful for a teacher
to have an understanding of the Nigerian Oil crisis that has been going on for over six
decades and the foreign countries that are involved in it, such as Great Britain. However,
there are many asylum seekers who are looking for a new life away from the dangers and
threats of their home country and looking to start over in Great Britain.
5 Resources to Support Teaching of the Text:
1: (Primary) - Channel 4 News: Investigation of Yarl Wood Immigration Detention Center
Published on Mar 2, 2015: The treatment of detainees inside the notorious Yarl's Wood
immigration removal centre is revealed in exclusive footage obtained by a Channel 4
News investigation
(YouTube) Yarls Wood: Undercover in the secretive immigration detention center
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkyvmvIn5HA&feature=youtu.be
2: (Primary) - The Guardian: Tamil deportee blames Britain for repeat of Sri Lanka torture
ordeal

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Hari, from Sri Lanka explains how he was beaten and tortured into admitting wrong
doing after being deported from the UK Immigration Detention Center
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jun/05/tamil-deportee-blames-britain-torture
3: (Secondary)people.com: Meet the Real-Life 'Lost Boys' of Sudan In The Good Lie
Ger Duany and Emmanuel Jal, two lost boys from Sudan, explain why they decided to
participate in making a movie about their story with Reese Witherspoon.
http://www.people.com/article/the-good-lie-movie-real-life-lost-boys-of-sudan-gerduany-emmanuel-jal-reese-witherspoon
4: (Secondary) The Guardian: Ger Duany: As an actor, I share my life story with other
kids who are struggling.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/apr/12/interview-ger-duany-the-good-lie-southsudan-war-unhcr
5: (Primary) - The New York Times: In Fathers Memory, Fighting to Stay in Britain
The true story which was the inspiration behind Little Bee. Manuel Brave, 35, kills
himself in a British Detention Center (Yarls Wood) to save his son, Antonio (13 years
old) from being deported back to Angola. The British immigration laws do not allow
deportation of orphans who have no family waiting on them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/world/europe/21antonio.html?_r=0
6: (Media): - (Primary) - (YouTube) Yarls Wood: Undercover in the secretive
immigration detention center https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=EkyvmvIn5HA&feature=youtu.be
7: (Media): - (Secondary) - The Good Lie Movie with Reese Witherspoon and Sudanese
Lost Boys about their life growing up within the Sudanese Civil War and refugee status in
America.
Instructional Activities:
5 Activities from 3 Instructional Strategies:
1: Cooperative Learning:
Jigsaw:
1: Home groups read the separate articles on the Nigerian In Crisis, Curse of the
Black Gold, In Fathers Memory, Ger Duany Interview, Tamil Deportee, and Lost
Boys from Sudan. Then separate into expert groups and discuss each reading.
Spend 10 minutes max on each article and take notes during discussion to turn in at
the end of class (90 min).
Country & Citizenship Activity

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2: Students will get into groups of 4. Each group will be given a country chosen by
the teacher. In the groups, one person will be assigned to come up with a list of
goods and services produced by that country. Another person will be assigned with
contacting the other countries for trade purposes and must sell at least one good
away to another country and buy at least one good from another country as well. A
third group member will be tasked with creating a citizenship exam for immigrants
to pass. The last member will come up with a list of reasons to deport immigrants
as well as a list of requirements in order to gain asylum.
2: Video Clips:
3: Students will watch the Channel 4 News Investigative video of Britains most
notorious Immigration Detention Center (Yarls Wood)
Students will discuss the Human Rights issues surrounding the center that are
uncovered by the documentary.
4: The teacher would show clips from the movie The Good Lie which illustrates
another example of refugees and asylum seeking. This story is a true story of the
lost boys from Sudan and their story of gaining asylum in the United States as
well as their story about running from the civil war in their home country of Sudan.
Teacher will ask the students to compare and contrast The Good Lie story and
the Channel 4 documentary with that of Little Bee.
Compare and contrast the issues within each story concerning Immigration,
Deportation, Civil Wars, and Human Rights.
3: Role Playing: Hot Seats
5: The teacher would take the characters in the book, Little Bee, Yevette, Sarah,
Andrew, The Killer (Nigeria), Lawrence, Mr. Ayers, and even Charlie and set up hot
seat debates between two characters at a time. Throughout the book, topics arise
such as government action, immigration, civil war, foreign policy, and even human
rights. These are the topics that will be replayed and debated among the students to
show their comprehension of the book and the key human rights issues brought up
by the book.
Teacher will assign characters to students and have the students prepare questions
to ask to particular characters of the book other than their own.
During the class, two characters at a time will be called to the front of the class and
put in the hot seat. Students will raise their hand and ask their prepared questions
to one of the members in the hot seats and strike up a conversation between the
classroom and/or the other character in the hot seat.
3 of the 10 NCSS Thematic Strands:

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1: Theme 1 - Culture: Social studies programs should include experiences that provide
for the study of culture and cultural diversity.
Through experience, observation, and reflection, students will identify elements of
culture as well as similarities and differences among cultural groups across time and
place. They will acquire knowledge and understanding of culture through multiple
modes, including fiction and non-fiction, data analysis, meeting and conversing with
peoples of divergent backgrounds, and completing research into the complexity of
various cultural systems.
Through the analysis of this fiction novel, the students will get an understanding of the
differences between western culture in relation to others such as the cultural differences
between African nations and Great Britain
2: Theme 3 - People, Places, & Environments: Social studies programs should include
experiences that provide for the study of people, places, and environments.
The study of people, places, and environments enables us to understand the relationship
between human populations and the physical world.
Through the study of Little Bee, the students will see the interactions among Nigerians
and the British in response to the physical characteristics of Nigeria which provide a
specific type of crude oil.
3: Theme 4 - Individual Development and Identity: Social studies programs should
include experiences that provide for the study of individual development and identity.
I believe that one of the essential questions in the novel is related to what it takes to
survive in a developed society when coming from a country such as Nigeria. Many
times in the novel, Little Bee refers to the necessity of looking pretty or speaking well
in order to make it in Great Britain. This leads to Little Bee having to change her
identity in order to avoid being sent back to Nigeria. Also, many of the interactions
with the British people, upon being released from the Detention center, involve the
mention of Little Bee not sounding like those people or one of them.
4: Theme 6 - Power, Authority, and Governance: Social studies programs should
include experiences that provide for the study of how people create, interact with, and
change structures of power, authority, and governance.
In the story of Little Bee and her struggle for asylum in Great Britain, the force of
power is the British Government, its citizens, and the Police. All of these mentioned
have some that believe refugees and asylum seekers are just drains on the economy
who are only there looking to feed.
5: Theme 7 - Production, Distribution, & Consumption: Social studies programs
should include experiences that provide for the study of how people organize for the
production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
In Little Bee, The cause of civil war in Nigeria is the crude oil which is seen as a
necessity for the countries around the world as developed and industrialized nations

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and they are coming into Nigeria to get it while the Nigerian rebels are trying to protect
it.
Novel Review:
Little Bee is a great book to use in the social studies classroom. My purpose for using the
book, although there are many angles to go with it, would be for the cultural aspect and the
human rights aspect of the book. The World Geography standard 4 and indicator 4.1 states that
the student should be able to identify the characteristics of culture and the impacts of cultural
beliefs on gender roles and the perception of race and ethnicity as they vary from one region to
another. The book illustrates the concept of culture, race, and gender continuously throughout
and gives the reader a dual view from the under developed world to that of the developed world.
For the first activity, I chose to assign the class a jigsaw group. There are 5 articles that I
would divide amongst the class and have them discuss in a round table fashion with their expert
groups in order to learn from each other as well as point out the key points of each article. I
would specifically ask the students to pay attention to the racial, gender, and cultural aspects of
each article as well as the human rights issues. Through the YouTube activity, I hope to show the
students a serious human rights issue that is still going on in the present day. In the investigative
Channel 4 news story, the students will see the ways in which the refugee women, men, and
children are treated in such inhumane ways and what may or may not be being done about this
problem in the UK. The Country and Citizenship Activity will give the students a chance to
right some of those wrongs by empowering them to make the decisions for themselves that the
government does or does not make within the book as well as the investigative video. This
activity really covers the NCSS Thematic Strands number 6 and 7 in that on one hand, the
students are able to govern their country in the way they see fit while at the same time, having a
hand in the production and consumption of raw materials found within their country. I decided
to use The Good Lie in an effort to compare and contrast the human rights and immigration
aspect of the book, which is based in Great Britain, to that of The United States in order to avoid
letting the students think that the human rights issues brought up within the book, articles, and
videos are a British problem. As the state standards point out, there needs to be a illustration
of experiences between peoples from different regions around the world.
Overall, when reading this book I was drawn to the story and immediately saw a chance,
as a teacher, to bring a story like this into the classroom to discuss social justice issues around the
world and here at home in the U.S. Thinking outside the box, I also saw this as an opportunity to
open up to the classroom and talk about my own feelings of the book. Specifically the way in
which the refugees were seen as draining on the economy and therefore needing to be
deported. In some ways, I see this as a horrible human rights issue but on the other hand, the
racial aspect cannot be swept under the rug just to go with the economic problems of
overpopulation. I think that openly talking about my own interpretation of the book with high
school students will allow them to comfortably open up and share their feelings as well. In this
way, the activities that I have mentioned should flow more smoothly because the majority of the
lessons will involve a great deal of discussion and even some debate.

Branham Daniels

Country &
Citizenship
Activity

1. Goods &
Services

2. Trade

3. Citizenship
Test

Historical Novel Project

Name of
Country

10.14.15

_____________

Branham Daniels

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Historical Novel Project

Country &
Citizenship
Activity

Name of
Country

_____________

4. Immigration,
Deportation,
and Asylum

Compare & Contrast

Little Bee & The Good Lie

Compare

Contrast

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Historical Novel Project

Compare

Contrast

Works Cited

Sara-Wiwa, K. (n.d.). Nigeria in Crisis: Nigeria, Oil and the Ogoni. Retrieved October 15,
2015, from http://www.jstor.org.pallas2.tcl.sc.edu/stable/4006321?
Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=nigeria&searchText=in&searchText=crisis&se
archUri=/action/doBasicSearch?Query=nigeria+in+crisis&acc=on&wc=on&fc=off
Nigerian Oil. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2015, from http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/
2007/02/nigerian-oil/oneill-text
Tamil deportee blames Britain for repeat of Sri Lanka torture ordeal. (n.d.). Retrieved October
15, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jun/05/tamil-deportee-blames-britaintorture
Ger Daune: "As an actor, I share my life story with other kids who are struggling." (n.d.).
Retrieved October 15, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/apr/12/interviewger-duany-the-good-lie-south-sudan-war-unhcr

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Bernstein, N. (2011, August 20). In Fathers Memory, Fighting to Stay in Britain. Retrieved
October 14, 2015, from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/world/europe/21antonio.html?
_r=0
Yarl's Wood: Undercover in the secretive immigration detention centre | Channel 4 News.
(n.d.). Retrieved October 14, 2015.
The Good Lie [Motion picture]. (2014). Warner Home Video.