America in the 1960s was a very unfair time in history. African Americans were not treated as well as whites. In the novel The Help, the story of female African Americans working as maids is revealed to a town called Jackson, Mississippi. Aibileen is quiet, hard-working, loyal maid. She works for Elizabeth Leefolt. Aibileen is raising her seventeenth white child, Mae Mobley. She is always reminding Mae Mobley that she is important because her mother neglects her. Elizabeth Leefolt, the white women whom Aibileen works for, is friends with Hilly Holbrook, the envy of the women of the town, who is very against equality for African Americans. Her Home Help Sanitation Initiative, a project to ensure that all homes have separate bathrooms for maids, has her friend Eugenia Phelan, or Skeeter, furious. Suddenly, Skeeter has an idea for what to do with her anger. She decides to gather maids to share their experiences with her so that she could write a book about being a maid. Maybe this would finally help people see the truth. Skeeter has a lot of trouble finding maids that are willing to share their stories since it is a risky project, but Aibileen and her best friend Minny convince many more maids to contribute to the book. The book is then published, but it causes much controversy, and Skeeter and the maids are once again in danger. Will the people of Jackson find out that the book is about them, or will the Terrible Awful thing that Minny did to Hilly keep them safe?


The Help is a very intriguing book, it is hard to put down. This historical fiction novel uncovers the truth about what it was like to live as a maid in the 1960s. It reveals the struggle of taking on a treacherous endeavor and teaches readers not to give up. The corresponding film to this novel very well portrays this theme. The actors and actresses are perfect for their roles and the director’s vision of the book makes the film match. There are some events that were excluded from the movie, but most of them were not main, key events. In my opinion, the decision to leave out some of those events was an intelligent decision because it saved time and made the film shorter. I believe that the novel is better than the book, just because I enjoyed the details the book had to offer but had to be left out of the movie. I would definitely recommend both the novel and film to anyone who is looking for something enjoyable and inspiring to read and watch.