Knowledge Is Power

Joan King-Abner, guest blogger, tells about her experience with the novel Secret Promise:

I never thought I would read something about the South. I never thought I would enjoy a novel written about 1900’s dealing with southern Mississippi coming from a white woman’s perspective. I never thought that I would enjoy it and appreciate it.

It kept my undivided attention.

It was believable.

When I told my friends about it, they said, “Girl I don’t want to read this book. It’s dealing with Mississippi – southern Mississippi at that.” It has changed my thought concept. I have always had a concept of everything that happened in Mississippi, and everything was so racial. I challenge every woman to read this book. It is an eye opener. It was very amusing in places and it kept my undivided attention dealing with the South in the 1900’s.

My son teaches high school history – African American history. I suggested the book to him. His students read it and his entire class had a learning experience. The book allowed them to be challenged. They found it quite interesting and very informative.

This book has also intrigued kids to share it with their other peers outside his classes. We can’t wait until Mary Lou Cheatham writes another novel. There are young girls in many of our communities who have been abused. A lot of girls were able to identify with Caroline. When the kids were able to write essays after the completion of reading the book, some of their responses were tear jerkers; and my son , being a classroom teacher and also a male, advised them that their secrets were safe with him.

Now the kids are asking for similar books that they can relate to because Secret Promise allowed them to know there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and other people have similar situations. Sometimes reading about issues and similar things that other people have allows you to relate to your own situation. They were able to hurdle hidden agendas. Many inner city kids have no one to relate to. This book allowed them to use the experience as therapy.

In some of the summaries the kids were able to state how they could identify with Caroline’s abuse, how some of their grandmothers lived in their households and were similar to Rachel, the cook. Their grandmothers were like Rachel. The grandmothers do all the housework – they cook and clean. Some kids say, “My grandmother is the praying lady like Rachel with old-fashioned concepts.”

Some of the kids were able to identify with the stepmother Hortense because a lot of kids felt their stepmothers did not get to know them and they had no identity with their stepmothers. Overall, this book was similar to real lives in 2012.