In Jackson, Mississippi, there are lines that are not crossed. Black maids raise the white children, but no one trusts them not to steal the silver. Aibileen is a black maid, raising her seventeenth white child, but with a bitter heart after the death of her son. Minny is the sassiest woman in Mississippi; she can cook like nobody's business, but she can't keep her lip buttoned. And Skeeter is a white woman with a degree but no ring on her finger. Home from college, Skeeter discovers her beloved maid Constantine has disappeared without a trace. And as different as they may be, these three women will come together for a clandestine project that will put all of them at risk.

But The Help is not just about race, it's about how women, whether mothers or daughters, the help or the boss, relate to each other. It's about the dramas of domestic life: pride, competition on the cooking and home front complex emotions about the raising of young children, and that horrible feeling that those who look after your children may understand them, deal with them and love them, even, better than you . . .