What are you reading this summer? I've been beavering away at all sorts of literature (and by literature I mean all the things I don't really have time for during the school year) and today I finished reading my latest quest (recommended to me by my mama and her reading group). I can't really stop thinking about it or talking about it, so I just had to share it. It's this novel right here:
Have you read it yet? No? Then all I have to say is do it. You. Will. Be. Changed. Maybe not in a drastic way, but it will make you think, and think hard. It takes place is Mississippi in the early to mid 1960s, it's told from the perspective of two black maids and a white girl (the novel is divided into sections, with each woman taking a section). And I think it's nothing short of brilliant. It is a personal and poignant look at segregation, prejudices and how wrong ideas can be passed from generation to generation and the fight to changes those ideas. But even with all these lofty sorts of themes, it is a humble and unassuming read. It is real and therefore so beautiful. Not much of a reader? (become one) Then listen to it on tape, cd, mp3 or whatever, because not only is it a wonderful read to yourself book, it's a wonderful read aloud novel. And the readers are fabulous. I sit and listen with Mama (she's behind me in the book, but I love it so much I want to listen to what I just read) and embroider and then before you know it, we're speaking with our best Southern accents all about what we just heard. If you read nothing else this summer (and I surely hope you do choose to crack the spine of another this season) read The Help. Tell me what you think about it.