book #8 the invention of wings

book #8 for 2015 is checked off the list and it was a good one. a REALLY good one! 

the invention of wings is a novel that tells the fictional story of abolitionist sarah grimke, her sister nina and a salve named handful. handful is given to sarah when she is a young teen as a birthday gift by sarah's mother. the book goes into detail about sarah's life and her struggle with her own views and beliefs about slavery that go against everything her family has taught her. sarah's younger sister shares sarah's same beliefs and the two of them make a life for themselves. 

handful is the daughter of another one of the family slaves. handful's mother teaches her about how her grandmother used to be free, like a black bird. handful has several tragic events happen throughout her life, but she perseveres and becomes and stronger for her trials. 

when handful is given to sarah, a remarkable relationship forms between them. it is actually a friendship between slave and master...although sarah never wanted a slave at least she could save handful from some of the other things that went on throughout the house. when handful was with sarah, she didn't have to fear the missus (sarah's mother). sarah taught handful to read, which was against the law. 

handful's mother, charlotte, made sarah promise to one day set handful free....it becomes a promise that aches at sarah's soul. she tries many times, but fails. 

i won't give away the ending...you'll have to read it to find out if sarah keeps her promise to charlotte. 

this was an easy read and i fell in love with the characters. i've read one other sue monk kidd book, the secret of bees. i loved that book as well. 

i can't even imagine what it would be like to be sarah grimke. to be a woman, speaking out against slavery in the south in the early 1800s and even further from my imagination is what it was like to be a slave. it's so far removed from what my life is like that i can't even fathom it. how could people think slavery was OK. not even OK, but a duty as a white person to help control the black population. the thought of it makes my stomach turn. the thought of work houses and the evils that went on make me ill. many of the slave owners would not treat their animals the same way they would treat another human. 

take some time to read this book.....to ponder at what life was like back then. would you have been brave like sarah and nina? would you stand up for your beliefs about slavery? i would like to think that i would. i would like to think that i would be that brave and courageous. but then i think about all that sarah had to endure because of her beliefs, and it makes me wonder if I could be that brave.