The Help is a extraordinary story of courage. I am generally not someone who picks up a book to read for fun, but I absolutely loved this book.The book was far better than the movie. Although I was the only person in the theater that wasn’t a middle-aged woman, I really enjoyed the movie as well.We’ve read all about racial intolerance during that time period, but this movie allows us to see it in a different light, the point of view of the help. These maids were afraid for their lives when they wrote anonymous stories about the women they worked for. They were so afraid because they wrote the truth. They wrote about the good, the bad, the ugly, everything.

In our generation we use the word racist commonly, but the word has truly lost its meaning. The physical, emotional and verbal abuse African Americans underwent was completely intolerable, especially in Mississippi during the 1960s. It’s heartbreaking to know that people participated in the abuses of innocent people because of the color of their skin.

The movie, as well as the book, shows the bravery of one white woman, Miss Skeeter, and a group of maids standing up for something that they believed in. Miss Skeeter, an aspiring journalist, and The Help put everything on the line to tell people their stories. They wrote about the white babies they loved, the terrible way they were treated and sometimes the good way.

The maids wrote about what they cooked and how they were forced to use different plates, silverware and even bathrooms. They took a huge risk, which for the most part paid off.

The movie was fantastic, don’t get me wrong, but it did leave out some of my favorite details, like a love story.

Yet this inspirational story combines with humor to tell the tales of a group of courageous women. You just might not want to watch it while eating a piece of chocolate pie.