If you haven’t read The Help by Kathryn Stockett yet, you still have time before the movie based on the book is released on August 12. Our library book club is finally reading The Help for our meeting on May 11.
Why did we wait so long (it was only on the New York Times bestseller fiction list for 103 weeks, finally dropping off on April 10, 2011)? I was waiting for the paperback edition to come out. If you haven’t read The Help, it’s about Skeeter Phelan, a recent college grad and aspiring writer in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, who breaks all the rules by collaborating with Aibileen and Minny, African American maids, on a book about their relationships with their white employers.
If you read The Help and loved it, there are other books I could recommend to you that are similar to this first novel. I love recommending readalikes to people, the part of my job that we in libraryland call readers’ advisory.
There is a lot of buzz on book club blogs and newsletters about a novel that is being compared to The Help – The Dry Grass of August by Anna Jean Mayhew. Mayhew’s first novel chronicles a road trip by thirteen-year-old Jubie Watts, her family and their African American maid, Mary, from North Carolina to Florida in 1954. A terrible tragedy occurs on the trip that challenges Jubie’s ideas about love, family and race.
Elizabeth Berg’s We Are All Welcome Here is set in the same Civil Rights era as The Help – 1964 Tupelo, Mississippi. Thirteen-year-old Diana is being raised by her quadriplegic mother and Peacie, their African American caretaker. Life changes for all three of them when a social worker investigates their home and Peacie’s boyfriend joins the civil rights movement.
You might also try Beth Hoffman’s Saving CeeCee Honeycutt. After the death of CeeCee’s mentally ill mother in Ohio in 1967, her great aunt Tootie rescues her from a negligent father by carrying her off to Savannah, Georgia. CeeCee is introduced to a genteel style of Southern life, including eccentric friends of the family and a loving African American housekeeper, Oletta.
What do all these books have in common? Girls with distant, absent or emotionally unavailable parents who are raised or rescued by loving African American household help. What does the popularity of these books say about contemporary society? Now that would be a good book discussion question!
If you would like to read any of these books, don't forget you can check them out at Groton Public Library.
If you haven’t read The Help by Kathryn Stockett yet, you still have time because the movie based on the book is being released August 12. Our library book club is finally reading The Help. Why did we wait so long (it was only on the New York Times bestseller fiction list for 103 weeks, finally dropping off on April 10, 2011)? I was waiting for the paperback edition to come out. If you haven’t read The Help, it’s about Skeeter Phelan, a recent college grad and aspiring writer in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, who breaks all the rules by collaborating with Aibileen and Minny, African American maids, on a book about their relationships with their white employers. If you read The Help and loved it, there are other books I could recommend to you that are similar to this first novel. I love recommending readalikes to people, the part of my job that we in libraryland call readers’ advisory.
There is a lot of buzz on book club blogs and newsletters about a novel that is being compared to The Help – The Dry Grass of August by Anna Jean Mayhew. Mayhew’s first novel chronicles a road trip by thirteen-year-old Jubie Watts, her family and their African American maid, Mary, from North Carolina to Florida in 1954. A terrible tragedy occurs on the trip that challenges Jubie’s ideas about love, fami
Elizabeth Berg’s We Are All Welcome Here is set in the same Civil Rights era as The Help – 1964 Tupelo, Mississippi. Thirteen-year-old Diana is being raised by her quadriplegic mother and Peacie, their African American caretaker. Life changes for all three of them when a social worker investigates their home and Peacie’s boyfriend joins the civil rights movement.
You might also try Beth Hoffman’s Saving CeeCee Honeycutt. After the death of CeeCee’s mentally ill mother in Ohio in 1967, her great aunt Tootie rescues her from a negligent father by carrying her off to Savannah, Georgia. CeeCee is introduced to a genteel style of Southern life, including eccentric friends of the family and a loving African American housekeeper, Oletta.
What do all these books have in common? Girls with distant, absent or emotionally unavailable parents who are raised or rescued by loving African American household help. What does the popularity of these books say about contemporary society? Now that would be a good book discussion question!
