“The Help” by Kathryn Stockett and National Nanny Night Out

There has been a lot of buzz about the book The Help since it came out and now the movie is being released next month.  Deborah Brown has provided a review of the book and information on how you can be involved in a National Nanny Night Out with the opening weekend of the movie.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett is set in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, and focuses on 3 women and the changes that take place in their lives when they collaborate on a secret project with explosive implications.

Aibileen and Minny are black maids, whose work cooking, cleaning, and raising the children of their white employers allows the lives of the women they work for to run smoothly. Aibileen is raising her 17^th white child, and while she still accepts her place as an unappreciated gear in the cogs of her employer’s life, she is also growing bitter after years of coping with blatant and ignorant racism. Minny doesn’t suffer fools gladly, which means she has been fired from multiple jobs before she finds work with a young married woman who is an outsider among the young white socialites that make up the “in crowd”.

Skeeter is a new college graduate who stepped outside the proscribed roles for women of her age by not simply marrying and having children after high school. When she returns to Jackson, she discovers that the maid who raised her, Constantine, has disappeared. Skeeter’s search for meaningful work and her desire to find out what happened to Constantine combine with her growing discomfort concerning the way her white friends treat their maids and lead her to a life changing decision. She’s going to write a book about the help.

Skeeter tries to recruit the maids in Jackson to tell their stories about what life is like for them, and meets plenty of resistance. The story about how the black women of Jackson decide to take the risk and tell the truth, and how the relationships between Aibileen, Minny, Skeeter, and multiple other characters develop and change over time as the proposed book moves from dream to reality is an amazing, heart wrenching, and eye-opening tale.

The Help Opening Weekend Plans

The Help was published in 2009, and a movie based on the book is being released on August 12^th of this year. During opening weekend, August 12^th and 13^th, nannies from across the country are coming together in their local areas to see the movie and enjoy lunch or  dinner afterwards.

Nanny Biz Reviews is coordinating a National Nanny Night Out event for opening weekend, to encourage nannies across the US to go see the movie with their local nanny peers and then enjoy dinner and discuss the movie. To find an event near you, or for help coordinating your own event, you can contact Lora Brawley at info (at)nannybizreviews (dot)com .

You can find The Help The Movie on Facebook as well

review of  The Help by Deborah Brown, Professional Nanny since 1993
Blogging at http://talesfromthenannyhood.blogspot.com/