book 3

The Help is a story about the struggles the ‘help’ has to go through. They have seen quite a bit of things but have stayed quiet. They know their place and what their job is. They are black and the women that they work for are white; that in itself tells them their place. Even though the colored people are ‘separate but equal’ according to the Jim Crow laws they are still treated differently. Aibileen has taken care of Mae Mobley all her life and has taken care of their family as well, she is stilled forced to have her own ‘special’ bathroom; all this because she is colored and because Hilly said so. ‘They carry different diseases than we do’ is Hilly’s reasoning. However, Minny doesn’t take much from anyone, colored or white. This has caused her trouble finding and keeping a job. When Skeeter starts to see what has always been going on she decides something needs to change. Then the story begins; the book that they decide to write. 

Then we have the Secret Life of Bees. This story is following Lily as she deals with the death of her mother and her dads’ constant anger. Her journey officially begins when she goes with her maid, Rosaleen, to register to vote. The news just announced that colors can vote as long as they can spell their name in cursive. On their way to register, they encounter some racist white guys. Rosaleen decides to over use her new found ‘equality’ by pouring snuff juice on their shoes. This ends in her incarceration and eventually Lily breaking her out and running away with her. They go to Tiburon where Lily believes her mom was before she died. They end up at this pink house where the Boatwrights live. These colored people are the people who might be able to give Lily answers about her mother. She starts to live with them under a lie, her parents are both dead and they are heading to live with her aunt. Her living with colored people stir up a commotion and it eventually leads to her father finding her.

Both of these stories have one major thing in common, the colored people’s struggles and others trying to change it. In the Help we have Skeeter trying to change the situation. ‘They are scared, looking at the back door every ten minutes, afraid they’ll get caught talking to me.’ However, what change can be done if people like it the way it is. Then we have The Secret Life of Bees. Even though you don’t see someone trying to change the way things are, you do see Lily going against the norms by living with colored people. Even the colors see the taboo in what they are doing, ‘But she’s white, August.’

These books aren’t to change your opinion but to give you a different opinion on things. They want to show you that even though things are a certain way, it doesn’t mean that they can’t be a different way. Lily showed us that by loving a colored family and Skeeter showed us by defending the colored maids.

These books had character in a way that they had their own style of writing. They talked about things that were issues of the time. Even if people didn’t agree with the author’s opinion, they stated it any ways. The Help gave us insight into what the maids because the different chapters had different people talking. In the Secret Life of Bees Lily told her story the way she thought it.

These books were very good. They were entertaining but informative. The Help gave us some facts of the Jim Crow Laws. I would rate it with 5 stars. They  deserve the best because the story, plot, purpose was all very entertaining.