From The Bookshelves

Source: The International Bookseller

  I bury myself in the next housekeeping article, then the League newsletter. For the second week in a row, I leave out Hilly's bathroom initiative. An hour later, I find myself staring off at the window. My Copy of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men sits on the window ledge. I walk over and pick it up, afraid the light will fade the paper jacket, the black-and-white photo of the humble, impoverished family on the cover. The book is warm and heavy from the sun. I wonder if I'll ever write anything worth anything at all. I turn when I hear Pascagoula's knock on my door. That's when the idea comes to me.

No. I couldn't. That would be . . . crossing the line.

But the idea won't go away.

The Help, by Kathryn Stockett

This book is so wonderful, on so many levels. Three different narrators, three distinct voices, three amazing stories that all inevitably weave together. What kept striking me as I read it was that I am in the same place as Skeeter (recent college graduate, living at home, trying to find work/make my life "matter"), but that we are in such incredibly different environment. It seems so foreign to me, the level of understood prejudice and ignorance that was just an accepted part of society . . . parts of the book floored me, and brought tears to my eyes. The amount of sacrifice, the injured pride . . . it seems like it should be total fiction, from somewhere else entirely. And yet it was only 45-50 years ago, in the country where I live. And its a battle still being fought, in America and all over the world. The Help is funny, entertaining, heart-wrenching, and eye-opening. Get on it, kiddies.