The Invention Of Wings

When I first started a Book Club, the first book we read was The Secret Life Of Bees. After reading the book, I got the Movie & watched it with my family. Both are very good. My Daughter Lexi really liked the movie & wanted to read the Book. If you ask her today what her Favorite Book of all time is she would say The Secret Life Of Bees! I've also read another Book by the same Author, Sue Monk Kidd, that she wrote with her Daughter, Ann Kidd Taylor called Traveling With Pomegranates. I really enjoyed that Book as well. And in my What To Ask Santa For Blog Post this past Christmas, I told you she had a new Book coming out soon that I really wanted to read called The Invention Of Wings. 

"We're all yearning for a wedge of Sky, aren't we?

I suspect God plants these yearnings in us

so we'll at least try and change the course of things."

Oprah had selected it even before it came out, for her new Book Clubs first selection of 2014! I couldn't wait to read this one! And soon after it came out a local Indie Book Store here in Arizona called Changing Hands Bookstore announced they were bringing in Sue Monk Kidd to talk about this new book! They had such great response that they had to move it from the Bookstore to a local High school. And of course Lexi wanted to go with me to hear her favorite Author speak! I love the fact that I can share my love of Reading & Books with my Kids. We took our books in hopes of getting her to sign them as well. Authors are my Rock Stars! :) 

"If you must err, do so on the side of Audacity!"

I was so excited to hear her talk about this Book. She told of how she came to write it and what it meant to her & even read us some portions of the Book. Confessing "Writing is an Act of Courage!" She talked about the Feminine Journey, as The Invention Of Wings was based on the life of the Grimke sisters, who are real & a slave girl who was also real, but passed away in adolescence, it is the imagined life of this slave along with the sisters who owned her from childhood & became some of the first female abolitionist, changing the course of History. 

"I wanted to know things, to become someone."

Sue Monk Kidd stated "Women only realized how oppressed they were when they decided to stand up to the oppression of others!" By taking a stand against Slavery in the South, the Grimke sisters also became some of the first Women to ever speak in front of men, putting them ahead of their time in the fight for equal rights for Women. She said "Empathy is the real purpose of Fiction!" I loved that! Lexi & I both loved getting to hear her speak and having her sign our Books! She commented on how my Book, Traveling With Pomegranates was all marked up, I told her that was for Book Club. :) And I told her how when I let my Niece borrow my copy of The Secret Life Of Bees, Lexi had to go out & buy another copy of it, because she couldn't be with out one! She was very grateful to have someone as young as Lexi come out to hear her speak!

 "Carry on my Sisters!"

I read The Invention Of Wings pretty quickly, it's that good! I really loved it! And now, after hearing the Author talk about it, Lexi is reading it as well! We highly recommend it, if you are looking for a good read! How are you doing with the 2014 Bookshelf Challenge? This was Book number 6 for me this year! :) If you've read it, I love to hear your thoughts on it as well. Happy Reading!