The Help by Kathryn Stockett [book]
Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, 2009Language: English
Hardcover: 464 pages
ISBN: 0399155341
Plot Summary:
Aibileen is an African American maid living in a small town in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960's, she has spent her entire life as a maid caring for the children of others. In the story Aibileen is looking after Mae Mobley who is the center of her life and daughter of a woman that wants to fit into the culture of her friends and does anything to fit in. Mae Mobley is ignored, and the only woman that cares for her is her maid, who later in the novel, cannot even use the restroom in the house. Skeeter is a young white woman fresh out of college wanting to make something of herself in life and living back with at her family's house. Skeeter is awkward, tall, and kind; she grew up with a maid that took care of her just as Mae Mobley. She is friends (by childhood default) with the mother of Mae Mobley and another young woman named Hilly who is the leader of the social circles in the town. Skeeter begins to see a pattern of how the maids are treated and starts to approach them in private about transcribing their stories. She first begins with Aibileen, who is extremely reluctant because she wants to keep her job, but she eventually agrees and through her Skeeter is able to get to the other maids and beg them to speak out. Minny is the third main character of the story. Minny is another maid that is loud, proud, a great cook and abused by her husband. She was Hilly's maid but was fired, and she did something so despicable to Hilly that she is not able to find work in town; not until a woman who is desperate to fit into the town hires her.
The stories that the women tell are heartbreaking and real and they make it known that they have been treated like they were nothing as maids. One of them asks for a small raise in order to put her children through school and is denied, and in a moment of self defeat steals and irreverent article from the household, and when she is caught she is arrested. All of the stories are of injustice and when Skeeter finishes the novel it is published and becomes wildly famous. All of the maids are terrified that the families they work for will realize it is their town, but when Hilly reads Minny's story she knows it is their town but convinces everyone it is not because of the embarrassment of what Minny did to her.
Critical Evaluation:
There was much said about the fact that this woman wrote about the injustice of the maids, but she was a white woman. I thought that this novel was very well written and it presented a good picture of how it must have been in that time era for the maids that lived in the south. The story did well in switching between all of the characters and I thought that the similarities between Skeeter and Mae Mobley were touching and so heart wrenching that the only women that they felt were their mothers were not treated like they should be allowed in the house. The dialog was well written, it moved at a good pace and the theme of treating people equally and understanding human plight was very present.
Reader's Annotation:
Skeeter is young woman living in Mississippi that decides to write the stories of the maids in the households of the town she lives in and how they are treated; when it is published the town is put under a microscope.
Websites to look Into:
http://kathrynstockett.com/
The Author:
This book was Stockett's first book and it took her 5 years to write it, and she grew up in Jackson, Mississippi.
Awards:
New York Times bestseller: 2009, 2011
Orange Prize: 2010
Indie's Choice Book Award: 2010
Townsend Prize for Fiction: 2010
Exclusive Books Boeke Prize: 2009
SIBA Book Award: 2010
International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award: 2011
Similar Books:
"The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd
"The Kitchen House" by Kathleen Grissom
Booktalking Ideas:
Discussing the movie and the book
Talking about racial ethics and treatment/ behavior of other people
Genre:
Adult Crossover, Fiction, Multicultural
Interest Age:
16+
Challenge Issues:
Racism
I think that the main challenge of this book is the racism and not treating people ethically but the book faces it head on shows the injustice of doing this to people. It shocks people, but it does so in order to show the lesson of the book- that people should be equal and treated as human beings.
Why this Book?
I think that this is a good book that discusses racial issues and social behavior in the 60's but that it is still relevant today- it speaks of treating everyone equal and understanding how other people are treated.
