Take my Hand

Locations
Call Number: Fiction / Perkins-Valdez, Dolen, Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Perkins-Valdez, Dolen
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Pittsfield Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Perkins-Valdez, Dolen	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Perkins-Valdez, Dolen	4-week checkout	Due 05-12-2024
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Perkins-Valdez, Dolen	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Perkins-Valdez, Dolen	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Perkins-Valdez, Dolen	4-week checkout	On Hold Shelf
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Perkins-Valdez, Dolen	4-week checkout	Due 05-21-2024
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Perkins-Valdez, Dolen	4-week checkout	Due 05-17-2024
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Perkins-Valdez, Dolen	4-week checkout	Due 05-11-2024
Pittsfield Adult Books 2-week checkout	Express Shelf Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Perkins-Valdez, Dolen	2-week checkout	Due 04-20-2024
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Perkins-Valdez, Dolen	4-week checkout	Due 05-25-2024
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Perkins-Valdez, Dolen	4-week checkout	Due 05-27-2024

"Inspired by true events that rocked the nation, a profoundly moving novel about a Black nurse in post-segregation Alabama who blows the whistle on a terrible wrong done to her patients, from the New York Times bestselling author of Wench. Montgomery, Alabama, 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend has big plans to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she intends to help women make their own choices for their lives and bodies. But when her first week on the job takes her down a dusty country road to a worn-down one-room cabin, she's shocked to learn that her new patients, India and Erica, are children--just eleven and thirteen years old. Neither of the Williams sisters has even kissed a boy, but they are poor and Black, and for those handling the family's welfare benefits, that's reason enough to have the girls on birth control. As Civil grapples with her role, she takes India, Erica, and their family into her heart. Until one day she arrives at the door to learn the unthinkable has happened, and nothing will ever be the same for any of them. Decades later, with her daughter grown and a long career in her wake, Dr. Civil Townsend is ready to retire, to find her peace, and to leave the past behind. But there are people and stories that refuse to be forgotten. That must not be forgotten. Because history repeats what we don't remember"-- Provided by publisher.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Library Journal Review
Booklist Review
Publishers Weekly Review
Summary / Annotation
Excerpt
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Insightful read submitted by ccarethe on July 24, 2022, 11:39am This book was difficult to put down! I learned about how Low income women of color were forcefully sterilized without Informed consent in the past (and ways how it continues present day).

Excellent read submitted by Kbolling on August 7, 2022, 10:04am I enjoyed the narration jumping from the 1970s to present day!

Necessary read submitted by Beatlesfan04 on June 13, 2023, 10:08pm This book deals with difficult, but necessary to understand topics about the role of the US in the forced sterilization of women of color. It also grapples with doing the right thing and "helping" and how those lines are not always clear cut. I don't think it needed the time jumps. It could have just gone to the present day at the end. The jumps made it feel disjointed, and left some plot holes I don't think would have been there if it went in order.

Hard history, great book submitted by Susan4Pax -prev. sueij- on August 2, 2023, 5:12am Holy heartbreaking history, Batman! My typical pattern is to put books on my To Read list because I’ve read the blurb and checked the ratings (and/or have a strong recommendation), but then by the time I get the book from the library, pull it up in my Kindle, or take it off my shelf, I have forgotten the theme and am going in blind. I like it this way, as it lets me encounter the book the way I presume an author intends.

So I read _Take My Hand_ without remembering (at all) what it is about. It’s about a women’s clinic in Montgomery, AL in the early 1970’s that used an unapproved, unconsented birth control on Black girls who weren’t sexually active (or even menstruating yet), and how that horror scaled up with those girls and out across the country. It’s based on a true story, and would not wrongly be considered the female version of what happened in the Tuskeegee syphilis experiment.

I was not entirely unfamiliar with the core of the story, and it was still horrific to read in this fictionalized version. It is very well told, with nuance and complexity recognized throughout. Highly recommended both as a very good book, and for anyone who wants to learn more about US history (particularly, in this instance, Black history in the South shortly post-Civil Rights era).