The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Help is one of those books with a jacket so lovely it could adorn a coffee table and, more importantly, a story so true to life it can make readers laugh, cry and curse. Kathryn Stockett effectively weaves three narrators -- a husband-fearing black maid who speaks her mind at a time and place when that just wasn't done -- Jackson, Miss., in the early 1960s; a God-fearing black maid who dares to take a chance and tell her story; a young white woman who listens to them and others and puts their stories on paper in a book that makes some of Jackson's "finest" look, well, like anything but the finest.

Some of the maids' recollections are sad and bitter. Others are happy, even loving. Some, especially Minnie's "unmentionable" story that finally gets more than a mention, will make you laugh our loud.

The book likely will evoke different reactions, depending on the reader's age, race and racial prejudices -- or hopefully, the lack thereof. But everyone I know who has read the book enjoyed it and recommended it to others.

As for myself, I grew up in the 50s and 60s in Marked Tree, Arkansas, in a middle-class family not wealthy enough to have a full-time maid. So, I can remember an era when blacks and whites used different public restrooms and attended different, allegedly "separate but equal" schools. By the mid- to late 60s, a black lady named Josephine would occasionally clean our small house maybe once every two weeks or so and cook dinner -- supper we Southerners more often call it. I remember how much Mama loved coming home from her work as a teacher to a clean house, a pot of pinto beans and a pan of hoe cake -- or, as Josephine called, it "dog bread." Would you like a recipe with no promises that it will taste as good as Josephine's? Let me know.

Josephine was kind to my family, and I honestly recall nothing but kindness to her. Unlike the characters in this book, we had no bathroom restrictions and would have never considered them. Josephine was not a young woman then, and I don't know if she's still alive. But if she is, I hope she's enjoying retirement, eating buttered dog bread with a bowl of beans, some wilted lettuce -- and getting someone to clean her own house for a change. And maybe she -- or at least her children, grandchildren or other loved ones -- will read this book and have some views to share themselves.

I would love to hear from people of all colors, ages and genders about their thoughts on this book. I suspect, by the way, it's going to be made into a movie.