Bookclub-in-a-Box Discusses The Invention of Wings, by Sue Monk Kidd: The Complete Guide for Readers and Leaders

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Bookclub-in-a-Box literary discussion guides offer interpretations and analysis of the themes, symbols, and writing styles of your favorite contemporary novels. Each guide also includes a handy plot synopsis, the author's biographical information, discussion questions, and more. They are ideal for use by book club members, teachers, students, and literature lovers. Discussion guide does not include the novel itself.

About The Invention of Wings: Ten-year-old Hetty “Handful” Grimké is an urban slave in early 19th-century Charleston. She is given to the Grimkés' daughter, Sarah, on Sarah’s 11th birthday. Sarah, however, has a mind of her own and does not want to “own” another human being. She believes she is meant to do something big and important in life. When she tries to free Hetty, her parents intervene and the two girls become bonded in a relationship that will span thirty-five years. Sarah defies her parents and her society by becoming an abolitionist. In this, she is joined by her younger sister Angelina. Together they become pioneers in the abolitionist and human rights movements.

The story is based in part on the real-life feminist activists Sarah and Angelina Grimké. Kidd uses the character of Hetty and Hetty’s servitude in juxtaposition to Sarah’s liberal leanings. Hetty’s mother, Charlotte, is a fearless and cunning woman who records her family’s history on a quilt that she keeps hidden from her masters while her lover, Denmark Versey, a free black man, plans a slave uprising that ends in disaster.