The Help by Kathryn Stockett

This is a book I read recently and it was very good, especially if you are very interested in the history of the civil rights movement, like me.

Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is a white college student who recently graduated from the University of Mississippi or "Ole Miss" in 1962. All her life, her and her family have relied on the aid of black maids, often referred to as "the help", thus the title of the story. After talking with her family's maid, Aibileen Clark, who talked about her son Treelore wanting to write a story about what it would be like to work as a black person in the white world, suddenly she has a revelation for a story that could rock the very foundations of 1962 Jackson, Mississippi

She enlists the help of Aibileen Clark and has her start asking around for maids who want to write a tell all about what it is really like to work as a black maid in the homes of the South. First up is Aibileen's hair-trigger tempered friend Minny Jackson, who is known as the sassiest, loudest mouth in town, but is also known for her wonderful pies. After a while, Skeeter has a whole lineup of maids wanting to talk. She interviews them and says that she will change the name of all who are involved to protect their identities. When the book is published and everyone starts reading it, they all try and figure out if this place in the story, listed as Niceville, Mississippi, is a real life place and the people are real.