A great read...

We found out last week that North Carolina State University has a Common Reading Assignment for the entering class of 2011. Since Steph has a history of waiting until the last minute to complete summer assignments (does AP English IV and AP US History ring a bell, anyone?), I immediately went to Amazon and ordered the book. This year the Common Reading Selection Committee chose....The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.

Here is what NCSU's website posted about the book:

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than 60 years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons, as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses and the effects of the atom bomb; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.
Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.
Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Va.—a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo—to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.

Being the nosy, controlling, have-to-know-everything mother that I am, I decided to read the book first, and I have to say that it is AMAZING!! I cannot put it down! Even though it is non-fiction, it reads like a novel. I would highly recommend it to anyone, and I cannot wait to see what Stephanie thinks. The story is fascinating, and I am still having a hard time believing that this happened in our country. So even if you are not a soon-to-be college freshmen, I would highly recommend that you add this to your summer reading list.