The Help

Name: Serina

Grade: 12+

Title: The Help

Author: Kathryn Stockett

Jackson Mississippi is probably just about the least exciting town in all the United States. At least until twenty-two-year old Skeeter gets an idea that she just can't seem to shake. She has just graduated college and wants to make it as an author, but writing the book she has in mind could be very conflicting and also very dangerous. She wants to interview the help, African American women that are often underpaid and mistreated by their white employers. Skeeter doesn't know if anyone would ever even want to read such a thing, but she feels compelled to write by her lost maid Constantine, who raised her and then disappeared while she was off at college. Skeeter first contacts Aibileen, the maid of her friend, and eventually Aibileen agrees to tell her story. But they will have to keep their meetings secret and coax other maids into contributing, even when it could mean the end of their jobs, or possibly their lives.

In this inspirational, painfully real book, the reader can get a taste of the joys and pains of the African American workers that spent their lives raising other people's children and doing their work, known simply as The Help. The book rotates through three key characters: Skeeter, a young white girl out to try and change the poor conditions of Jackson Mississippi; Aibileen, an older, thoughtful woman who has raised sixteen white children and is on her seventeenth, even when her own son is dead; and Minny, a sassy woman that always speaks her mind. Together, they tell the story of what life was like in 1962 and how they all had the hope and the courage to try and change it.

I picked this book up because I thought it sounded interesting.

I finished this book because it was funny, moving, and also heartbreaking.

I'd give this book to just about anyone.

Rating: ***** It was amazing!