To Kill a Mockingbird

Lee, H. (1960). To kill a mockingbird. Philadelphia: Lippincott. ISBN 0397001517

Plot Summary

                      Scout and her older brother Jem live in the sleepy town of Maycomb.  With their friend Dill who visits in the summer, they rely on elaborate games on pass the time.  One of their games  centers around rousting their reclusive neighbor and resident boogieman Boo Radley out of his house.  This absorbs much of their time and distracts them from the growing controversy surrounding a trial involving Scout and Jem's father, Atticus Finch, a lawyer who is representing a black man wrongly accused of raping a white girl.  But before long, their community’s respective outrage towards and support of Atticus involves the children, including Scout, who is too young to completely understand the issues at stake but deeply affected by them nonetheless.  Between this inescapable issue galvanizing the town and Jem, who is maturing past Scout at a rate that alarms her, and their ongoing efforts to engage with Boo Radley, the Finch children are swept into a series of events that will change their lives and their outlooks forever, not to mention the community in which they were born and raised.

Critical Analysis

                        This book is undeniably an American classic, both as far as literature or the highest quality and the documentation of a society struggling with issues of inequality and racism.  The most important literary element in To Kill a Mockingbird is point of view.  Harper Lee chooses to tell this monstrously weighty story through the eyes of a child whose viewpoints have not yet been sullied by age or adult opinion.  Scout is bright, funny, rebellious, and deeply stubborn.  She is blunt in her opinions on the world around her, and she sees things in a very black and white manner, meaning that her perception of right and wrong is absolute and uninfluenced by societal pressure.  She is offset by Jem, who is much like her in his strict belief that right should prevail over wrong, but he is also older and more informed; therefore he falls harder when he is disappointed.  He also understands some of the complexities of Maycomb’s small society and as such intuits the seriousness of the situation, including the fact that Atticus might not be safe. Atticus himself is arguably one of the greatest literary characters in modern literature.  He is an attentive and amused father, although he does not dote.  Central to his character is his deep integrity and, like his children, his sense of what is right and wrong – but unlike his children, he understands the world and takes on the case knowing the outcome will not be in his favor.  This is the genius of Atticus, and the lesson to be learned by his children and by the reader: true courage is to take up the mantle and do what is right at the risk of your own personal safety simply because it is right, and because someone must forge ahead this way if anything is to change.  Contrary to this indomitable strength of character, Atticus is often portrayed as older and physically weak, and Scout laments that he is not like other fathers, meaning young and strong.  But throughout the story, his strengths are revealed even to Scout, who understands less acutely than Jem, but who does ultimately see her father in a new, truer light.  And running alongside all of this is the lesson the children learn from Boo Radley about humanity and mercy and how most things are not as they seem.  Set against Lee’s beautifully rich depiction of the south, this story is so deeply satisfying on so many levels, it is difficult to resist the impulse to flip back to page one as soon as you are finished.

Reader’s Annotation

                              Scout and Jem spend their summers playing with their friend Dill, who invents a game that involves rousting out their reclusive neighbor and resident boogieman Boo Radley.  This game, as well as the mounting tension surrounding a trial in which their father is representing a black man, sweep the children into a series of events that will change their lives forever.

About the Author

                           Harper Lee, born Nelle Harper Lee, was born in Monroeville, Alabama.  Much like the character Scout in her one published novel, she was a tomboy whose father was a lawyer.  One of her close childhood friends was future celebrated author Truman Capote, then called Truman Persons.  She finished school and went to college for law, but soon discovered that English and writing were her true passions.  She moved to New York, where she found Truman Capote again, and made friends with the composer Michael Martin Brown and his wife.  They gave her an extraordinary present: to support her for one year so that she could write full time instead of working the odd jobs that supported her.  She took this gift and finished To Kill a Mockingbird in 1959.  Following this, her only known efforts toward writing entailed helping Capote research and craft the article that would later become In Cold Blood, and then working with him on the book.  In her older years, she retreated from the public eye and lives a private but active life.

                          In 1961, To Kill a Mockingbird won the Pulitzer Prize as well as other literary honors.  A screenplay was developed and the book was turned into a successful film.  Lee visited the set of the film and gave several interviews to support it.  At one point she also held a post on the National  Council of the Arts, as requested by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Genre

        Historical - classic

Challenge Issues

                          Possible challenge issues in this book include racism, rape, racial slurs, and profanity.  In the event of a challenge, I would consult the challenge defense file prepared for this book.  The challenge defense file would include: positive reviews from credible sources for the purpose of proving merit to the challenger; negative reviews in order to inform me on what might be challenged; a written explanation of my own rationale for including the book in the collection as well as a summary of the plot; the American Library Association Bill of Rights; a review of my branch’s selection policy; and, as a last resort, an explanation of the reconsideration policy for my library and an official reconsideration form.

Curriculum Ties

                        English and Writing, or History: for English and Writing, voice, point of view, story arc, and character development; for History, racism and civil rights.

Booktalk

            Find out what the south used to be like before civil rights, when people standing up for what they believed in was a rare and risky occurrence.  Harper Lee shows it all through the eyes of an innocent child who is as yet unaffected by society’s opinions.  This portrait of a community divided and a man fighting a battle he knows he will not win, simply because it is right, will amaze you.

Reading Level and Interest Age

                                              Grades 8-12, and infinitely beyond.

                                                  

Why I Included This Book

                                       Oddly enough, I never read this book until I was an adult.  I never had to read it in school, and I never came across it in any young adult library collection.  When I read it, it destroyed me in that wonderful way that works of genius do, and I wish fervently that I had read it as a younger person, because I think it would have affected me even more deeply during those formative years.  This book is unparalleled, and in my opinion should be included in young adult collections even though it was written for adults.

References
Harper Lee. (2011). Biography.com. Retrieved from http://www.biography.com/people/harper-lee-9377021