Kathryn Stockett’s second novel takes place in Mississippi in 1933 and is narrated in two alternating voices. Meg is an eleven year old girl. She is living in an orphanage that is run by a mean, puritanical director who is especially cruel to Meg. She was raised by a single mother who simply disappeared one day. Birdie is a twenty something single woman living in a small town in Mississippi with her mother and grandmother. She must travel to Oxford to beg her sister for money. What happens to Meg and Birdie in the next few months is the crux of The Calamity Club.

Anyone who enjoyed Kathryn Stockett’s first novel, The Help, will want to read The Calamity Club. Although it could have used some editing in a few places, it is touching, humorous and informative.with very engaging main characters as well as fine secondary ones.