The Help is a novel by Kathryn Stockett about black maids living in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960s civil rights movement. It follows main characters Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson, who are maids for white families. Skeeter is a young white woman who decides to write a book from the maids' point of view. She gets Aibileen and eventually Minny to share their stories of mistreatment. Skeeter pieces the stories together into a book called The Help, which is published and becomes very successful.

1. The Help Summary
Project
By: Brianna Turner

2. The Help is a novel that was
written by Kathryn Stockett to
describe the personal and
unknown lives of black maids in
Jackson, Mississippi during the
Civil Rights Era (1963).
This novel was written in 2011. Shortly after people started
reading the novel, a major motion picture was made.

3. One of the main characters, Aibileen Clark, is a black maid that works
for a white woman by the name of Miss Leefolt. Aibileen does just about
everything for Miss Leefolt. She cleans, cooks, and even takes care of
Miss Leefolt’s daughter, Mae Mobley.

4. Another main character is a black maid named Minny
Jackson. Minny is Aibileen’s best friend. Minny works for a
woman named Hilly Holbrook.

5. Skeeter is a young white woman that is on the rise in the
writing business. She is a journalist who decides to write a
book from the Jackson maid’s point of view and publish it to
all of society.

6. There is a lot of drama that happens in “The
Help.” First of all, the white people do not see
African Americans to be equal to them. The
black people are treated unfairly. For example, if
you are a black maid working for a white family,
you are not allowed to use the same toilet as
them. In the book, Hilly fires Minny because
Minny uses Miss Hilly’s bathroom. Hilly is
President of the Jackson Junior League and so
she is an influence on everybody. She convinces
Miss Leefolt to get a separate bathroom made
for Aibileen and she does.

7. When Skeeter first attempts to get Aibileen
help her right the book that describes what
it is like for the black maids working in
Jackson, Aibileen says no. Aibileen says it
will be too dangerous to write about and
even Skeeter’s boss says that it will not be
a good idea because the maids won’t be
completely honest. After a while of
persuading, Skeeter finally gets Aibileen to
agree to help write the book and her boss
gives her the okay to write the book.

8. Skeeter would also like the help of Minny while
writing the book but she knows it’s gonna be
hard to get Minny to agree. Skeeter gets
Aibileen to try and convince Minny to share her
stories but it seems like Minny just isn’t going to
crack. Aibileen writes down her stories and
gives them to Skeeter. Skeeter edits them and
eventually starts piecing them together into one
big story. Skeeter sends her boss everything
she has wrote so far and her boss loves them
and tells Skeeter that she needs to have 12
more stories put together to be able to publish it
as one big book.

10. Once Minny sees that Skeeter and
Aibileen are successful so far, she
finally agrees to give Skeeter some
of her personal stories. Aibileen
tries to talk other maids into telling
Skeeter their stories but they all are
so scared of what the
consequences are if they get
caught so they all say no.

11. After Hilly fired Minny, she hired a
new maid. The new maid, Miss
May, was convicted of trying to steal
jewelry from Miss Hilly to pay for her
son’s college education. This makes
all the maids in the city furious and
soon, Skeeter has almost every
maid in Jackson lined up ready to
tell her their stories.

13. Skeeter finally finishes putting together all
of the maid’s stories. She sends all of them
off to her boss. Her boss then publishes
the book called “The Help” and it is very
successful. Miss Hilly finds out that Minny
took part in writing the book because there
were stories of things Minny did to Miss
Hilly in the book. Miss Hilly tries to tell
people that all the maids in Jackson took
part in writing this book but everyone
thinks she's gone mad.

14. Skeeter gets an offered her
dream Job as an editor at
Harper’s in New York (magazine)
and declines the job because she
doesn't want to have to leave
Aibileen and Minny. Aibileen quits
her job working for Miss Leefolt.
She decides to do more things
that involve writing.