“To kill a Mocking Bird” by Harper Lee

🍂”Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit’me, but remember its a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
– Harper Lee, To kill a mocking bird
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🌼If you have been a reader for some time, you would have definitely come across a mention of this classic, and most of you would have already read it.
But if you have not yet come around to reading this coveted novel, here are all the reasons why you should!
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🌻 A classic set in 1930s Alabama is told by the point of view of a little girl, Jean, fondly known as Scout, who is witnessing her father, who is a lawyer, struggle to stand for a black man accused of raping a young white woman, in a town surrounded by people of racial prejudice.
As the events unfold leading up to the trial, will Atticus Flinch, the father, uphold his morale even when everyone is against him?
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🌺 Easily one of the easiest to understand classics, the story flows lyrically, the words almost poetic, the intricacy of the characters so memorable, the words don’t leave you long after you are finished reading them. Compassionate, striking and deeply impactful, the book talks of important themes of racism and inequality, by means basic subtleties of life, of human behavior, its innocence, its kindness, its cruelty, its love, its hatred all at the same time.
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🍁 A masterpiece that takes a story of two kids growing up in a world where all things are not fair, and the conflicts of a father trying to be an example for his kids and do the right thing, the characterization makes for a great story that constantly keeps you hooked and brings out the messages in a poignant manner.
Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐.5/5
Genre: classic, fiction, historical-fiction

“Becoming” by Michelle Obama

Becoming by Michelle Obama, an account of the first lady’s life before and in White House, her marriage with one of the most favorite presidents of the United States, and a, for the most part, a safe narrative of the Obama’s achievements that fail to evoke inspiration.
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While the book started great with depicting Michelle Obama’s as an ambitious young lady, talented and hardworking, somewhere with the start of Barak Obama’s political career, it all seemed to fade away.
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I felt, in the end, it was an attempt to portray her as someone much more than a First Lady and although the book describes her as deriving her self worth not only as an accessory to her husband’s career, it felt more of a political memoir where the focus was on the achievement’s of the Obamas in their tenure. In a way, I was disappointed in seeing so less of Michelle Obama as an inspiring person with her own ambitions and aspirations.
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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐/5
Genre: Non-Fiction, Politics, Memoir, Black-History
Reading Difficulty: ⭐⭐⭐/5

“The Color Purple” by Alice Walker

“I am an expression of the divine, just like a peach is, just like a fish is. I have a right to be this way…I can’t apologize for that, nor can I change it, nor do I want to… We will never have to be other than who we are in order to be successful.” -Alice Walker, The Color Purple
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Do you ever come across a tale so poignant yet so inspiring, that you cannot help but marvel at its beauty in all its form, one that is so tender that it touches you deeply even though it is just some words written on a few pieces of paper?
Well, this was one such read for me.
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Celia is a young black girl born into a poor family and having grown in a household where she was continuously raped by her father, deprived of the right to live with her two children and separated by her darling sister Nettie, she finds herself in an ugly marriage.
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Her life is gloomy and melancholious until she meets Shug Avery, a steadfast and unwavering woman, who refuses to resort to her destiny of living the life of a black woman, one that is filled with a lot of sacrifices and prejudice.
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Told by means of letters written by Celia, the story takes beautiful turns, showing a mirror of the condition of woman in black societies. If the blacks were the deprived classes back then, then the black women were deprived of the deprived. So much so that at some points of the book, it almost breaks your heart.
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Even though the narration is in African American English dialect, which might not be everyone’s piece of cake, once you get the hang of it, it is one of those tales that are so absorbing, you almost don’t want it to finish.
Intense yet gratifying.
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Genre: classics, black-history, historical-fiction, feminist-literature, feminism
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5/5
Reading difficulty: ⭐⭐⭐.5/5

“The Help” by Kathryn Stockett

“You is kind. You are smart. You are important.”

– Kathryn Stockett, The Help

Three wonderful women, Skeeter, Minny, and Aibileen, are set to change the course of history by bringing out a change in their small town of Jackson, Mississippi.

In a time when black women work as domestic help for white women, Skeeter, the white lady, decides to pen down the experiences of the ‘help’ to the white society in the hopes of exposing the white folk’s hypocrisy and stirring the already brewing black rights movement at that time.

What will she have to go through by turning against her own people?

How is Minny’s and Aibileen’s experience going to change the air of racism in their town?

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The narrative style is so fast-paced and dramatic that one finds it hard to put the book down. Although the characterization was simple and the writing style easy to read, the way the various characters were woven and how well the characters take forward the plot, demands applause for the author.

The only downside to the story was that the book was the stories of the black woman were narrated by the point of view of a white woman. It would have been better if the actual stories were elaborately told in the novel.

But that aside it was a riveting read, a story of not just racism but the bond between one’s househelp and oneself.

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Genre: fiction, historical-fiction #contemporary, black-history

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Reading difficulty: ⭐⭐⭐/5

“The underground railroad” by Colson Whitehead

“All men are created equal, unless you decide you are not a man”

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“The underground railroad” by Colson Whitehead, set in the pre-civil war era is an account of a young black woman, Cora who is a slave in a cotton plantation in Georgia. After endearing atrocities at plantation and stranded by her own mother, she along with another slave boy, Ceaser decides to take a terrifying risk and escape via the underground railroad.