The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Enter a vanished world: Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Where black maids raise white children, but aren’t trusted not to steal the silver …

There’s Aibileen, raising her 17th white child and nursing the hurt caused by her own son’s tragic death; Minny, whose cooking is nearly as sassy as her tongue; and white Miss Skeeter, home from college, who wants to know why her beloved maid has disappeared.

Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny. No one would believe they’d be friends; fewer still would tolerate it. But as each woman finds the courage to cross boundaries, they come to depend and rely upon one another. Each is in search of a truth. And together they have an extraordinary story to tell.

This was always going to be a good meeting. This book has got everything needed for a lively discussion on all the emotional issues close to our hearts. Racism, apartheid, inequality, social standing and women’s rights. The fact that it takes place during the 60s in the southern states, USA did nothing to diminish our enthusiasm and in fact tended to educate some of us more in the ways of this part of the world.

We all loved the characters, found them well-rounded and believable, even if a little stereotypical.

Most of us were aware of the tension running through the story and felt some fear for the blacks as Skeeter continued to meddle in the long standing way of life in Jackson. Ann found it interesting that we, as white people, felt compelled to point an accusing finger at Skeeter, believing she was putting herself first in pushing for the Help’s stories. Did she really care about the danger they were placing themselves in? It was an interesting turn of the table. Would any of us have had the courage to go through with such a plan?

Some wanted a little more history and thought the writing purposely kept light for the popular audience. We touched on the Freedom Rides and Rosie Parks a little, and someone mentioned that the ending seemed a little abrupt. This, we generally considered to be unavoidable, as this story has the possibility to be eternal. How much of this is still going on today we all wondered and were able to admit that America is not the only place one finds such attitudes. South Africa and closer to home, Australia itself, has been guilty of racism and apartheid, so throwing stones was never going to work.

There was much more said and debated, as this book has such a full cast of characters, incidents, and underlying themes that were no doubt written with a screenplay in mind. Some of us have seen the movie, but we were unanimous in finding The Help an extremely readable story. One that we feel confident in placing high on this year’s to read list.

The Report by Jessica Francis Kane

It is an early spring evening in 1943 when the air-raid sirens wail out over the East End of London. From every corner of Bethnal Green, people emerge from pubs, cinemas and houses, and set off for the shelter of the Tube station. At the entrance steps, something goes badly wrong, the crowd panics, and 173 people are crushed to death. When an enquiry is called for, it falls to the local magistrate, Laurence Dunne, to find out what happened during those few, fatally confused minutes.

Based on the true story of the worst civilian disaster of World War Two, this is an evocative, moving and beautifully crafted novel about loss and guilt, and the possibility of redemption.

First and foremost, it was agreed within our group that this novel provided some fascinating reading, in the information it supplied with regard to the actual true story of the Bethnal Green underground crush during the WWII blitz, and also the human story entwined within the facts. Little was known of this civilian disaster by any of us and there were a few who would have liked the novel to travel deeper into the factual history. But overall, we found the read a good one.

There were comments on the dry narrative and its propensity to jump about. Some found it a little repetitive and had a yes/no response to the book’s value.

While these opinions found merit with the group as a whole, the majority loved this book, both for its setting and the moral dilemmas it unearthed. We had a wonderful discussion on the effects of war on the human spirit and we even had some personal experience of London during the war years, which found firm ground with all of us. The discussion humbled us, and gave us renewed respect for those who lived through such a time.

Ann loved the opportunity the book gave for study and could list many ways she would have used it during her teaching career, and finished by remarking that the many “Don’t knows” within the story were its main prize.

Denise felt enlightened after reading it, stating that the insight into the East End community and in particular the underground setup was simply fascinating. The fact that the underground shelters, where everyone had felt safe, had failed them, was yet another human tragedy that needed recognition. Everyone also sensed the thinly disguised veil of anti-Semitism that ran through the community and we had much to say about whether this could have been the case among Brits at the time.

Is this just another World War Two story? Maybe, but the clinical, methodical look into what turned out to be a collective series of unfortunate events gives us yet another look into what we humans are capable of … the good and the bad.