The Help ~ a teaser

This teaser is from page 154 of The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  It's 1962 in Jackson, Mississippi.  Aibileen says to Miss Skeeter:

"I's thinking I ought to do some reading.  Might help me with my own writing."

"Go down to the State Street Library.  They have a whole room full of Southern writers.  Faulkner, Eudora Welty—"

Aibileen gives me a dry cough.  "You know colored folks ain't allowed in that library."

I sit there a second, feeling stupid.  "I can't believe I forgot that."  The colored library must be pretty bad.  There was a sit-in at the white library a few years ago and it made the papers.  When the colored crowd showed up for the sit-in trial, the police department simply stepped back and turned the German shepherds loose.  I look at Aibileen and am reminded, once again, the risk she's taking talking to me.  "I'll be glad to pick the books up for you," I say.