The Help

Stockett, Kathryn

The Help


Genre: historical fiction, race


Aibileen is a black maid in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, who's always taken orders quietly, but lately she's unable to hold her bitterness back. Her friend Minny has never held her tongue but now must somehow keep secrets about her employer that leave her speechless. White socialite Skeeter just graduated college. She's full of ambition, but without a husband, she's considered a failure. Together, these seemingly different women join together to write a tell-all book about work as a black maid in the South, that could forever alter their destinies and the life of a small town...

Bloods

Wallace, Terry

Bloods: Black Veterans of the Vietnam War: An Oral History

Genre: war, history, nonfiction, race

Romiette and Julio

Draper, Sharon M. 


Romiette and Julio


Genre: romance, race, gangs

Romiette is African American; Julio is Hispanic. Ironically, Julio's family relocated to escape gangs in his old high school in Texas only to find Cincinnati has them also. The two meet on the Internet and go off to a private chat room before they realize they are students at the same school. With names like these you feel they must have an ill-fated ending. In keeping with the Shakespearean tale, they are destined to be together while peers and family try to persuade them to part. The Devildogs, the notorious gang that rules the high school, are incensed by Romiette and Julio's relationship and harass them to the point that it becomes quite dangerous for the two.