Keeping+Corner

Leela is married to Ramanlal, and is going to move into with him soon. But few months before their "anu" when they will begin their marriage Ramanlal is bitten by a poisonous snake. When he dies, Leela is a widow. In Jamlee, the city where she lives widows are treated very poorly. For the first year Leela has to stay in her house all the time. This is called keeping corner. As time goes on, her brother, her tutor, and her new friend Shani all help her become who she really is. While she is being tutored, Leela reads the newspaper and essays written by a guy named Narmad, a man who lived 50 years before her. His idea is that men and women are created equally and that men and women have the right to an education. Another one of his ideas is that when a husband dies, a woman should be able to remarry. These ideas keep Leela going. After her year of keeping corner she takes exams to see if she can go to a university. At first, her father doesn't think that it's such a good idea, but Leela and her brother convince him that she should go. She passes with flying colors and goes to a university with her brother. During all this, people are fighting for freedom in India, and Leela feels like she is doing the same thing. No one understood what a widow went through until she showed them.

In this book I learned how unfair some cultures are. If your husband dies, you are considered unlucky. But what did you have to do with it? Widows are mocked, and taken advantage of. They are not allowed to wear nice clothing, they have to shave their heads, and they cannot wear any jewelry! For the first year they cannot leave their house. People don't visit because they think she is bad luck. But thank goodness people were realizing what was going on, and what needed to change. -Hannah

I learned a lot from this book. One thing that I thought was weird was that if the wife dies, the husband doesn't have to keep corner and he isn't considered unlucky. Another thing that I thought was weird, was that women have to keep corner. -Ana

I learned a lot about the culture in India in this book. I mostly learned about how widows are treated. If your husband dies, you have to shave your head, give up all of your jewelery, and wear muddy brown colored clothes the rest of your life. Everyone treats you badly, as if it was your fault that your husband died. If a man's wife dies, he can just go and marry another woman like nothing happened. If you are in a different kind of group, then you can get remarried if your husband dies. No one shows you any respect, and they don't want to be around you because you are considered "unlucky" and a bad omen. It's terrible to be a widow. ~Erin

I liked this book, but I thought the culture was stupid. They treated Leela like she was a rock, not caring if her feelings got hurt. I liked how kind her brother is to her, and how he wanted to change things for her. Her brother and her tutor helped her however they could and I thought that was really sweet. So over all I liked this book. -Hannah

I thought that this was a good book. It made me mad that women were treated so badly. Another thing that I didn't like was the ending. I thought that the author ended in a really strange spot. Over all I really liked this book. -Ana

I liked this book a lot. It taught me a lot of things, but wasn't boring. I also liked it because it showed the girl's feelings and what she believed. I was really surprised when I found out when this book took place. I thought it took place years ago, but the things that happen in this book still happen today. I think that a lot of things are really unfair. __Keeping Corner__ is a really good book. ~Erin