The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Synopsis from Kathryn Stockett's webiste:
Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.
Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.
Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.
Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.
In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women–mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends–view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don’t.
Favorite supporting character(s):
Mae Mobley. Because she is so cute and sweet. Her innocence is beautiful. I love her relationship with Aibileen. How she looks up to her. How, due to her fact that her mother isn't very good at mothering, she sees Aibileen as her real mama, saying, "Aibee, you're my real mama," and then, "I'm your baby." So cute! As Aibileen says encouraging words to her, "You is kind. You is smart. You is important." Thank you, Mae Mobley, for going on Aibee's pot. And the pot in Hilly's front yard. Coloring the picture you drew of a black you. Secret stories. Listening. Being you. Playing in the mud. Being a good big sister. Loving. You precious little girl.
Celia Foote. She's the best. I love love love her. Bubbly. Loving. Color-blind heart. Sweet as pie. From Sugar Ditch. Appreciative. So kind and warm-hearted to all. Friend to Minny. My absolute favorite part of the book was when that naked lunatic was in her yard yelling about his "pecker pie," and Minny told Celia to stay inside and lock the doors and went out with a knife chasing him. She'd gotten knocked down. Miss Celia comes running out with a fire-poker and starts hitting him. Again. And again. And again. Then she took care of Minny. She saved Minny and went all crazy on that man. I love the relationship between Minny and Celia. Love. And how she and Mister Johnny tells Minny that she will always have a job with them, if she wants it. Oh yeah, I love Mister Johnny too. How he loves Miss Celia so much. Oh, they are so cute together! Beautiful, loving couple. Gorgeous! Swoon.
Favorite quotes (some of them anyways, because there are so much more):
“You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”
“That's the way prayer do. It's like electricity, it keeps things going.”
“Once upon a time they was two girls," I say. "one girl had black skin, one girl had white."
Mae Mobley look up at me. She listening.
"Little colored girl say to little white girl, 'How come your skin be so pale?' White girl say, 'I don't know. How come your skin be so black? What you think that mean?'
"But neither one a them little girls knew. So little white girl say, 'Well, let's see. You got hair, I got hair.'"I gives Mae Mobley a little tousle on her head.
"Little colored girl say 'I got a nose, you got a nose.'"I gives her little snout a tweak. She got to reach up and do the same to me.
"Little white girl say, 'I got toes, you got toes.' And I do the little thing with her toes, but she can't get to mine cause I got my white work shoes on.
"'So we's the same. Just a different color', say that little colored girl. The little white girl she agreed and they was friends. The End."
Baby Girl just look at me. Law, that was a sorry story if I ever heard one. Wasn't even no plot to it. But Mae Mobley, she smile and say, "Tell it again.”
“Today I'm on tell you bout a man from outer space." She just loves hearing about peoples from outer space. Her favorite show on the tee-vee is My Favorite Martian, I pull on my antennae hats I shaped last night out a tin foil, fasten em on our heads. One for her and one for me. We look like we a couple a crazy people in them things.
"One day, a wise Martian come down to Earth to teach us people a thing or two," I say.
"Martian? How big?"
"oh, he about six-two."
"What's his name?"
"Martian Luther King."
She take a deep breath and lean her head down on my shoulder. I feel her three-year-old heart racing against mine, flapping like butterflies on my white uniform.
"He was a real nice Martian, Mister King. Looked just like us, nose, mouth, hair up on his head, but sometime people looked at him funny and sometime, well, I guess sometime people was just downright mean."
I coul get in a lot a trouble telling her these little stories, especially with Mister Leefolt. But Mae Mobley know these our "secret stories".
"Why Aibee? Why was they so mean to him?" she ask.
"Cause he was green.”
“Ever morning, until you dead in the ground, you gone have to make this decision. You gone have to ask yourself, "Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today?”
“Write about what disturbs you, particularly if it bothers no one else.”
“They say it's like true love, good help. You only get one in a lifetime.”
"We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought.”
"We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought.”
Aibileen. Wise. Mothering. Friend.
Minny. Hilarious. Strong. Self-less.
Miss Skeeter. Dreamer. Driven. Unafraid.
It's movie time!
This movie was excellent. I always say that books are always better than the movie version. That's a given. They go into more detail. Because they can. Because they are a lot longer. Squeezing six hundred pages into 2 hours takes some cuts here and there. But they did an amazing job with this movie. It hit all of the main points necessary to get the message and feel of the book across.
The movie was a lot less sad than the book. It was happier somehow. The movie left out the really downcast parts. Such as Minny's beatings. They mentioned them in the movie, but didn't show it. I like that they did that. Hilly wasn't as evil in the movie as in the book. She was a snobby-nose-in-the-air-holier-than-thou, foot-stomping-tantrum-throwing white lady. Granted, she did terrible things in the movie, but it wasn't as bad at book Hilly. I loved when she was eating the pie in the movie. Classic. Miss Walters, Hilly's mom, played a much bigger role in the movie than she did in the book, that's for sure. She was more of a problem in the movie. She laughed at Hilly eating the pie, she told Hilly to read the book and that it was probably about Jackson. Miss Skeeter's mom was also less bad in the movie. They made it seem like she kicked out Constantine because the other lady told her to. Rather than it being her decision. Speaking of Constantine's daughter Rachel, now that was a big change. In the book she looks white because Constantine is half white from her father. Where in the movie, she is black. In the book, when she showed up at the house, it was the first time Miss Skeeter's mom had ever seen her, rather than in the movie how she was portrayed to be somewhat of a family friend.
I love love loved Miss Celia and Mister Johnny in this movie. They are just the sweetest, cutest couple. Oh my my. I loved the depth of Celia and Minny's friendship in the book, but I love how it was in the movie as well. They looked out for each other. Celia is so bubbly and funny. I just love her. Obviously. But you already knew that. Mister Johnny is so sweet. I love the scene in the movie when Celia cooked Minny a dinner feast and she and Johnny told Minny that she would always have a job there as long as she wanted. True thankfulness for Minny. Oh, I love them. All three of them.
My favorite part of the movie is when Minny is walking towards Celia's house, carrying bags of groceries. Mister Johnny pulls up in his car and asks her if she needs help with them. She glances over at him, and then begins to run away screaming, "Miss Celia!" throwing groceries and dropping them everywhere. And then picking up a fallen tree branch for defense. It was hilarious to say the least. So darn funny. I absolutely love it.
The movie was full of hope and love. Sadness and joy. Cries and laughter. Breaking through boundaries. Overcoming obstacles. Finding your true purpose and reason for life. Knowing who you are. What you can accomplish with a dream. We are all just people.
The Help movie trailer
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