Three reasons why you need to read Small Great Things right now

mall Great Things is exactly what this world needs, especially after what we have gone through in 2016.

Here are three reasons why you need to read Jodi Picoult’s latest novel, Small Great Things, right now.

In this book, we are introduced to a black nurse who is specifically told by her superior not to care for the child of white supremacist parents. One day, while alone in the nursery, the child suddenly stops breathing.

Being the only one around, Ruth tries to save the child. However, the child eventually dies and the parents bring a lawsuit against Ruth because they believe she killed the child.

The entire book is a legal battle with Ruth trying to prove that she did not kill the child because she had an agenda against the parents for taking her off their case.

It’s an incredible journey that places you in the shoes of the different characters, making you think about how you would have reacted.

Nowadays, many books try to deal with racism, but they go about it in the wrong way. From Veronica Roth referring to dark-skinned people as “savage aggressors” in her latest book, Carve The Mark, to white authors being bashed for attempting to write diverse characters into their novels.

You can barely write anything without being subjected to intense criticism by people who do not know any better.

However, Jodi Picoult takes up that challenge in her book. Small Great Things encourages us to stop pinning the blame on any particular race, but to look within ourselves because we have our flaws.

Through her characters, she puts the blame on every single person regardless of their race. In her book, everyone harbors negative thoughts about people of different races, regardless if it is a white person towards a black person or vice versa.

Sometimes, things are spun to put the blame on a single group of people, which is completely unfair. Truly, this is a book that will make you rethink everything you used to think about race, and how you view it.

Jodi Picoult often goes to great lengths to make sure that each of her books are factually accurate. I mean, this is the author who spent time in an Arizonian jail while working one of her books.

As you can probably imagine, Jodi Picoult spent time sitting down with women of colour, nurses and lawyers. As a white woman, she had a clear idea of how to portray a black woman who was being racially mistreated.

I think many people need to look at racism differently. We need to stop blaming people. We need to look within ourselves and recognise that we all harbor prejudices, but it’s what we choose to do with it that will really define us.