book review: "The Invention of Wings"...

... written by Sue Monk Kidd. You might think the author's name vaguely familiar, and wonder if you have read some of her other work. Possibly, but more likely you saw a movie adaptation of her book "The Secret Lives of Bees"? About a young girl who was taken in by a family of beekeepers and the lessons learned from having the patience to care for those industrious insects. I'm not sure I saw the movie but read the book and found some good lessons to be discerned from Kidd's fictional writing.

This more recent publication is really interesting. I listened to the Cds, with two different voices reading the stories of the two main characters. A disturbing tale of life in Charleston, SC, in the early 1800's when slavery was a way of life in much of the United States. The story was told from two different viewpoints: a young slave girl and the young daughter of the wealthy family the slave was given to on her eleventh birthday. As children they are very close and spent most of their waking hours together, then the young slave was required to sleep on the floor just outside the bedroom door.

The recording was narrated by two different voices throughout the reading, which helped to make the changes from one character to another more discernible when not looking at the printed page.The daughter Charlotte was well educated for a female of this era, and allowed access to all the books in her attorney father's library. She innocently taught her slave, Hettie, to read, not knowing teaching Negroes to read was a crime. When it was discovered the slave was literate, Charlotte was forbidden to read more of the library books, though she had hoped for a career, following in her father's footsteps as a lawyer.

Over time this young woman came to detest slavery, and eventually went to live in the north and became a Quaker. She and her younger sister felt so strongly about abolition, they traveled and spoke out about slavery, as well as women's rights. At the end of the book, a short recording by the author describes how she discovered the history of these two women, who were virtually disowned by their family as they espoused freeing all the slaves. Real women, though a footnote in history. Kidd makes their story fascinating, adding references to other women of the time who became more well known, outspoken females in a time when women were considered second class citizens, without legal rights.