"The Help" Summary:

In the mist of the civil rights movement, a town called Jackson Mississippi was an epicenter of the war between races. "The Help" follows two maids working for white families and a white woman struggling with the expectations of society.

 Miss Skeeter returns to Jackson after attending college and cannot find her place in this familiar world. She yearns to move to New York and become a journalist but cannot catch a break. After getting in contact with a big time publisher, she found the inspiration she needed.

Aibileen Clark was a maid all of her life. She raised 15 white children whose parents were too wrapped up in their own lives and one of her own. Treelore was Aibileen's only biological child and the day he died, so did a part of her. Aibileen is left to pick up the pieces and continue work for a woman who cares little about her.

Minny Jackson is known around town as a maid with a mouth on her. Not only is she a notorious "sasser" but she is falsely accused of stealing from the woman she works for. She is left jobless and no hope for finding a new one after the word travels around town. Dealing with an abusive husband and a houseful of kids, she finally gets a break. When a new couple arrives in town, Minny lands a job with this woman, uneducated about the social roles around her. With her new relationship Minny is left rethinking the social norms she has tried to fit herself her entire life.

These three woman cross paths when a book idea, conceived by Treelore, Aibileen's late son, becomes Miss Skeeter's new brain child. She seeks out "the Help" in Jackson County to tell their stories of what it's like to be a maid. At first there are very few willing to talk, but as situations escalate, more and more sign on. With so many women in Jackson Mississippi leading double lives, it is just a matter of time until things come crashing down.

The Other Wes Moore

I started reading a book called, "The Other Wes Moore" that looks at two men with oddly similar lives. They are both black males living in the same Baltimore neighborhood, growing up in the same time period. Both had similar family and financial situations but 20 years later, they are in gravely different places. One resides at a state penitentiary where he will be until the day he dies and the other, an alumnus at John's Hopkins University, is married and a successful published author. As of the first few chapters, the book has described the early lives of these two young boys. Both of their fathers were gone before their eighth birthday. One Father left due to a drug addiction and a lifeless demeanor, the other died because of a misdiagnosis at a local hospital. "The chilling truth is that his story could have been mine. The tragedy is that my story could have been his."