The Invention of Wings, Sue Monk Kidd

This book!

There is so much good to be said here; let's start with the overall theme - slavery. Not a good subject, but in this novel by Sue Monk Kidd, it is brought to a level that all of us can understand. The story is broken into two distinct sections; (1) that of Sarah Grimke and her sister Angelina "Nina" is based on the author's research and retelling as well as fictionalizing these real sisters who, through a lifetime in a family of slave owners become advocates in real life for abolition as well as women's rights, and (2) Handful, the slave that Sarah was gifted on her eleventh birthday.

The readers switch by chapter, between Sarah's life as an unwilling participant in a family of slave owners to Handful, Sarah's slave. Sarah takes the time to secretly teach Handful the rudimentary skills to read (before the two are found out and the lessons come to a painful halt) and does her best to befriend the young girl who is her same age. Sarah spends the book searching for ways to make slave life better and to show her family, and later the nation, how wrong slavery is. Handful shows the reader the toil and trauma, the physical tragedies endured by slaves. She also shows us the love of family, the bond that ties those in tragedy, and the willingness of a spirit to live free.

The book is extremely well-crafted, unbelievably well-told, inexplicably touching, and equally heart-wrenching. During this past month of Black History (awareness), I have read several works by and about a piece of history that plagues me as a white American. If you are looking for an easy-to-read book about a difficult subject, The Invention of Wings is for you. If you are looking for a book about the human spirit, this book is for you. If you want to educate yourself without knowing you are doing so, The Invention of Wings is for you.

We must all read books such as The Invention of Wings. We must all do our part to learn and grow from history to be better in the future.