The Calamity Club
by Kathryn Stockett
Set in Oxford, Mississippi in 1933, the story follows eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur, abandoned by her mother one Christmas Eve. One of the unadoptable older girls at the county orphan asylum, she has learned to rely on no one.
Best for: Readers of Southern historical fiction with a young heroine.
The Calamity Club is #5 on BookWard's Rising chart for October 2026: the hottest new books published in the past two years.
What The Calamity Club is about
Mississippi, 1933: the Depression has settled over Oxford, and eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur lives at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum. Her mother left her there on Christmas Eve. Meg is counted among the unadoptable older girls, yet she refuses to believe she was abandoned on purpose.
Birdie Calhoun, an unmarried and outspoken bookkeeper, comes to town to ask her socialite sister Frances for money. She soon finds that her sister's charmed life rests on lies. When Birdie is asked to audit the orphanage's accounts before a state inspector visits, her path crosses Meg's. Then Charlie, a woman running out of luck, proposes a bold plan for the three of them to take their lives into their own hands.
Meg and Birdie take turns narrating. This is Kathryn Stockett's second novel, arriving seventeen years after The Help, and it looks at poverty, hypocrisy and how little freedom women were allowed.
Why The Calamity Club is on the Rising chart
Its Wikipedia page had 46,709 views last month, up 54% on the two months before. The Rising score blends six public signals, each scored from 0 to 100 against the other new books and weighted as shown.
| Signal | This book | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Reader pace | 64 | 28% |
| Buzz | 96 | 24% |
| Growth | 63 | 18% |
| Being read right now | 55 | 12% |
| Reader love | 8 | 10% |
| Newness | 100 | 8% |
Rising Wikipedia attention is up 25% or more on the two months before.
The numbers behind it
- Wikipedia: 46,709 page views last month, against an average of 30,409 in the two months before (up 54%). Read the article.
- Open Library readers: 28 want to read, 1 reading now, 2 have read it.
- Ratings: 2.5 out of 5 from 2 Open Library ratings.
The Calamity Club on the Rising chart: history
First on the chart this month. The history grows with every monthly update.
| Month | Rank | Score |
|---|---|---|
| October 2026 | #5 | 68 |
Questions about The Calamity Club
Is The Calamity Club a new book?
Yes. The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett was first published in 2026, and BookWard's Rising chart only includes books published in the past two years.
Why is The Calamity Club on the Rising chart?
Its Wikipedia page had 46,709 views last month, up 54% on the two months before.
More new books readers are finding
- The Things We Never Say Elizabeth Strout
- John of John Douglas Stuart
- Half His Age Jennette McCurdy
- Martyr! Kaveh Akbar
Prefer proven favorites? See the Top 100, or all Rising books.
How we know
This page uses public data: Open Library reader counts and ratings, and Wikipedia page views. The description is paraphrased from real source text (Open Library or Wikipedia). A book is on the Rising chart only if it was published in 2025 or 2026 and its readers are active and its interest is not falling. Rankings reflect reading interest, not quality or sales. Read the full methodology.
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