| If
you like To Kill a Mockingbird, you might like... |
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The Help
by Kathryn Stockett (HF STO)
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. 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. |
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A Lesson Before
Dying
by Ernest Gaines (HF GAI)
Tells the story of a young African-American man sentenced to death
for a murder he did not commit, and a teacher who tries to impart to
him his learning and pride before the execution. |
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Cold Sassy Tree by
Olive Ann Burns (HF BUR)
The unforgettable characters of Cold Sassy, Georgia, are presented
in this heartwarming story of modern times coming to a small
Southern town. Grandpa Blakeslee marries a young milliner just three
weeks after Granny Blakeslee has gone to her reward. Young Will is
boggled by this act but becomes the newlyweds' conspirator and
confidant; meanwhile he does some growing up on his own. |
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Peace Like a River by Leif Enger (F ENG)
In the 1960s, a spiritual man named Jeremiah Land sets out from his
Minnesota home with his young son and daughter to find his elder
son, Davy, after he escapes jail on the morning of his sentencing
for murder. |
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A Time to Kill
by John Grisham (MYS GRI)
In Clanton, Mississippi, the life of a ten-year-old girl is
shattered by two drunken and remorseless young men. The mostly white
town reacts with shock and horror at the inhuman crime, until her
black father acquires an assault rifle and takes justice into his
own outraged hands. |
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Snow Falling on
Cedars by David Guterson (HF GUT)
When a newspaper journalist covers the trial of a Japanese American
accused of murder, he must come to terms with his own past. |
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Cry, the Beloved
Country by Alan Paton (HF PAT)
Accused of murdering a white man, a young black South African turns
to his minister father and a white attorney for help, but the racial
problems of the country prevent justice from being served. |
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Let the Circle Be
Unbroken by Mildred Taylor (HF TAY)
Four black children growing up in rural Mississippi during the
Depression experience racial antagonisms and hard times, but learn
from their parents the pride and self-respect they need to survive. |
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The Heart is a
Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (HF MCC)
A deaf-mute who has lost his only friend to a hospital for the
insane becomes the recipient of the confidences of several other
town residents. |
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A Prayer for Owen
Meany by John Irving (F IRV)
Tells the story of Owen Meany who believes he is God's instrument
and his friendship with John Wheelwright; beginning at age eleven
when Owen hits a foul ball that kills John's mother during a Little
League game in 1953. |
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The Burying Field by
Kenneth Abel (F ABE)
Attorney Danny Chiasson becomes caught up in a web of violence and
murder when he is hired by a powerful New Orleans real estate
developer to look into a racially explosive situation set off by the
discovery of an old slave burial ground at the site of a proposed
shopping mall and housing complex. |
| |
The Watsons Go to
Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis (HF CUR)
The ordinary interactions and everyday routines of the Watsons, an
African-American family living in Flint, Michigan, are drastically
changed after they go to visit Grandma in Alabama in the summer of
1963. |
