READ THIS BOOK!

I'm probably the last of my friends to read this amazing book.

I've picked it up at the bookstore a dozen times.  I've read the jacket.  And thought, nooooo, just not what I want to read right now - not really wanting to read about Jackson, Mississippi in the 60's - I knew that story.  I thought I did.

I succumbed to friend-pressure, however.  I bought the book.  Then it just set on my bedroom shelf for a while.  I didn't want to tackle it.

A dear friend happen to ask if I had a copy because she wanted to read it and wasn't really sure she wanted to spend the money on buying it.  I brought it to her and said please read it.  That I probably wasn't going to read it anyway.

She brought it back to me with a sticky note (love those things!!) that said I LOVED this book.  And she told me how much she loved it.

So, I picked it up on July 4th, determined that I would read it. I spent the next three days consumed, addicted, obsessed with this book.  Friends told me that they stayed up all night to finish it.

I didn't just stay up late to finish it.

I stayed up late to READ it. Wanting to absorb so much of what the book had to say.  I read, and re-read many, many pages.  Dog-eared pages, highlighted pages.

It makes us, almost 50 years later, think about what we consider our conscience - what we consider our belief system, what we think about as our acceptance of others.  And DO we really think everybody is equal?

Different things to think about now, in 2010, but the same.

Read the book.