Small great things
by Jodi Picoult
Date: April 18th, 2023
Reviewed by: Wendy Powell
Good Reads gives this book a 4.35, and suggests that “With incredible empathy, intelligence, and candor, Jodi Picoult tackles race, privilege, prejudice, justice, and compassion—and doesn’t offer easy answers.”
The book is certainly challenging, not only raising difficult topics, but challenging our own beliefs and prejudices. This did not sit comfortably with all of our readers, with some finding Picoult’s observations about white subconscious prejudice to be a broad generalisation which could cause offense. However, we all agreed that seeing the racial issues and tensions from several different viewpoints gave us a different perspective, and perhaps even challenged our own complacency on these issues.
The authors note at the end of the book, which explained some of her reasons for writing it, and the stories she had drawn on in the process, added depth to our discussions and gave a bit more credibility to the somewhat surprising changes in one of the main characters.
The title of the book comes from a quote attributed to Martin Luther King Jr.( “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.”) and our discussions concluded that each of the main characters had indeed managed to do small great things. Perhaps we can, too.