To Kill A Mockingbird: The bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning modern classic

A wonderful story with several levels and a strong lesson to learn. It drew me in and became un-putdownable. A real insight into a time gone by.

Can't believe I waited until my fifties to read this. We never read it at school and it just passed me by. I knew it was considered a classic. I knew - from knowing of the film (which I also have never seen) - what the subject matter was, but I always looked for contemporary literature. I am trying to get back into reading. Work life means that I find it very difficult to concentrate long enough to get submerged into the plot of any book. I thought I'd try again. I had just finished A Month in the Country. A wonderful tale of a man heading to Yorkshire to spend a month restoring a fresco in a Church, following his return from the Great War. I realised that what I am looking for in a book is a slice of life. A story emerging from a situation. No twists and whodunnits. Just a story, plainly told. I Googled 'best slice of life books' and was surprised to see this come up. Knowing it's reputation, I went for it. I am so glad I did. Told from the point of view of 'Scout', the young daughter of Atticus Finch - defence lawyer for young black man accused of attacking a white woman in her home - it largely concerns itself with the childhood adventures that Scout, her brother Jem and their friend Dill get up to - all while observing the adult world around them and trying to make sense of that as well as navigating childhood and its own particular and peculiar set of rules. Using a child's view of the proceedings in relation to the trial is a clever way of asking questions and making points about the situation and the wider world at that time (although insanely, it's still very relevant in 2025!!). I am so glad I read this book. Lee's writing style is so easy. She paints vivid pictures that just roll off the page. It didn't feel dated at all. Wonderful!

This may seem a strange book to choose to review, after all it was published in 1960, but with the recent passing of the author, Harper Lee, I thought it might be time to take a look at To Kill A Mockingbird. Firstly, even though I was always an avid reader, when To Kill A Mockingbird was published it managed to pass me by. It wasn’t being read by my peers and any stir that the film had created was already dwindling by the time I reached the age group to which the book seemed to be appealing. Secondly, it is a book that seems to be better known these days for the film version than for its own merit, which is a shame. The 1962 film depiction, while creditable, is very narrow in its take on the story, focusing on the trial of Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman. I’ll return to that later. Finally, of course, there are whole generations of people who will not have read the book (or seen the film) as it tends to be contemporary books that are read, while older works are mainly gathering dust on library shelves. The plot covers many aspects of life in Alabama in the mid 1930s, as seen through the eyes of the protagonist Scout, or Jean Louise Finch to call her by her real name. The nickname is never explained. At the start of the story Scout is 6 years old, two years younger than Harper Lee would have been at this time. She is joined in her adventures by her older brother Jem (Jeremy) and a neighbour’s visiting nephew Dill (Charles Baker Harris). The book is not only a depiction of who two races see each other, it is also how different groups within the white race view each other and an early issue raised is about white poverty during the Depression. It later emerged that Dill was loosely based on Harper Lee’s real life neighbour Truman Capote, another novelist also recently deceased. Scout’s father is lawyer Atticus Finch who is also a member of the State Legislature and a much respected member of the community – at least at the start of the book. In real life Harper Lee grew up in Alabama and her father was a lawyer who became caught up in a rape case similar to that featured in the book. Harper Lee may also have been influenced by the trials, in Alabama, of the Scottsboro Boys, concerning the rape of two white women by nine black teenagers. The trials took place in 1931 the original trials are now generally regarded as significant miscarriages of justice. We join Scout at the start of her schooling where we discover that she is a precocious child, already able to read and write. Some might describe her as old beyond her years. The story then takes us through three years of her life, including the period of the trial and its aftermath. The use of Scout as the narrator is a very useful tool. As a child she is automatically considered to be naïve, which allows her to ask questions that no adult would think to ask, or maybe dare to ask. This is useful for the reader as the answers usually come from Atticus so we get to know him very well. They are more often avoided if asked of the other adult characters. We can feel Scout’s confusion as she is told by her first grade teacher not to read at home because she’s been taught to read “the wrong way”, which is one of the first narrow minded adult issues she has to deal with. During the first half of the book black people are barely mentioned. Calpurnia, the Finch’s cook/housekeeper, is black but is very much a part of the Finch family, carrying much of the burden of Scout and Jem’s upbringing to that point. Scout’s mother died when she was quite young and was almost unknown to Scout. Apart from that we hear nothing much about the black community of Maycomb County, as though they are invisible. This is entirely intentional, of course. Black people and white people just didn’t mix. Scout lives in a white neighbourhood, so almost the only black people she ever sees are domestic servants such as Calpurnia and those such as Zeebo, the garbage truck driver, who has to come into the area as part of his duties. She never encounters the majority of the black community who work on the land. Most of the first part of the story is about the three children and their adventures which, despite the passage of time, are not really any different from those that I enjoyed as a child and which many children still enjoy. In one sub-plot they are much taken by the mysterious figure of their reclusive neighbour, Boo Radley, and spend much of their time devising ways to tempt him from his house. Later the story turns to the trial of Tom Robinson and we discover some things that the film doesn’t make clear. The first is that Atticus didn’t willingly take on Tom’s defence. He is appointed to it by the County Court judge. The judge’s choice is deliberate of course, he wants Tom to have the best defence possible and Atticus is the man who will deliver that, but we are left with the interesting question: “Would Atticus have taken the case of his own accord?” The reason I ask this is because the film makes Atticus appear very liberal, almost a man of the future. I think the book shows us a different man. He was liberal by the standards of many of his peers, there is no doubt of that but would he, for example, have voted for John F Kennedy or Barak Obama? I’m not convinced. He believed in justice for all and the equality of all men before the law, but that is not the same as being liberal. The film also omits some characters who have a considerable influence on Scout, those of Aunt Alexandra and Miss Dubose, for example. I can see the need for the Director of the film to be selective in what sections of the plot are included and which left out, but those decisions are what makes the book superior to the film. I actually rented the film to watch so that I could make those sorts of comparisons for this review. In the run up to the trial the town is abuzz with gossip and divided in its attitude towards Atticus. Most people recognise that Atticus is just doing his job, but others regard his behaviour as showing favour to black people over white, which was unthinkable. Scout is regularly taunted at school over this matter and is not slow to take up arms in her father’s defence (be prepared for many uses of the “N” word). This is where the story becomes so contentious, because white attitudes towards black people were just starting to be challenged openly in 1960 when the book was published. Rosa Parks took her famous bus ride in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 and the book was published only 5 years before the civil rights marches protesting about black people not being allowed to register to vote in Alabama, despite it being their legal right to do so. It is of course impossible for Tom Robinson to get a fair trial from an all-white jury in Alabama in the 1930s, so Tom is duly convicted despite there being more than a little doubt over the evidence presented by the two key prosecution witnesses, Bob Ewell and his daughter Mayella, the supposed victim of the rape. Indeed it is key to later events that the pair are shown up to be liars, but that isn’t enough to sway the jury. Indeed Tom is more than a little lucky not to have been lynched before the matter even got to trial. It could be argued convincingly that it is still hard for a black person to get a fair trial in Alabama, even 80 years after the events depicted in this book, which makes the book as relevant today as it was then. However, the period in which this book is set is crucial to the way it is told. The last surviving Alabama veteran of the Confederate Army still lived in the town. The parents of most of the characters and some of the older characters, such as Miss Dubose, will have grown up in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, which left two communities struggling to makes sense of what had happened to their way of life. This will have doubtless had a profound effect on the way the white community viewed the black, while the black community discovered that being free was not the same as being equal. So, is this book still relevant in 2016? I would say it is. Why have I only given this book four stars? After all, it was seen as one of the great works of the 20th century. Well, it is somewhat dated. I think that if Harper Lee were writing it today (if she were still alive to do so) she would take a whole new approach to get her message across. It is also a matter of expectations. We shouldn’t try to judge the past on the basis of our values in the present. As Atticus Finch himself says, if we want to know a person we have to put on his shoes and walk around in them for a while. If we wish to judge the present then we have a whole lot of new evidence available on which to base our opinions. Do I recommend the book? Of course I do. My only regret is that I didn’t read it much earlier in my life.

Harper Lee created an amazing literary classic with To Kill A Mockingbird. To write a book that educates, inspires but is also an enjoyable read is no mean feat and Lee pulls it off with extraordinary aplomb. We see the world through the eyes of a grown up Scout who is relating the events she witnessed during her childhood as a little girl being raised with her brother Jem by her lawyer father Atticus, ably assisted by Calpurnia the family's housekeeper. The story takes us on a journey through some significant events in the Finch family life and we witness in the small community of Maycomb racial prejudice, injustice, domestic abuse, poverty and violence. This is no sweet tale of childhood friendships and memories of perfect summers. There is a great deal simmering under the surface of Maycomb's serenity and we see many instances of the darker side of human nature. However, through Atticus Finch, Calpurnia and Miss Maudie we see that all is not lost. The children learn great moral lessons from these characters, lessons for the reader as well. In this novel, we see the ugly side of human nature and the beauty in life that helps us cope with and overcome it. We see the children warmly welcomed into Calpurnia's community, into her church and onto the 'coloured balcony' in the court. They feel at home with people who are shunned and mistreated everyday by the injustice of segregation and they are stung by the prejudice displayed towards people who have been kind to them and who are made to suffer simply because of the colour of their skin. We, like them, feel our faith in justice shaken by Tom Robinson's trial. Atticus Finch sets a good example for his children. He stands up for Tom Robinson, the black man accused unjustly of sexually assaulting a young white woman even though he had to face down threats from a lynch mob and the possibility that his career and standing in society would suffer from accepting the case. He and the very small band of characters who think like him help provide the moral compass of the novel. However, perhaps the most important character in the book is the one we do not meet until the very end. It is the reclusive and ultimately heroic Boo Radley that brings our three children together (Scout, Jem and their friend Dill) and he is an enigmatic presence throughout the novel until his eventual unveiling at the story's close. If we had to live in Maycomb and had a sensitive personality, would we choose the same life that Boo did? This is a masterclass in how to create a morality tale that does not preach but educates and inspires in equal measure. Rightly described as a book every adult should read before they die, this is definitely one that should be on your bookshelf or your Kindle.

Scout Finch and her older brother, Jem, together with their friend Dill, become fascinated by the story of the neighbour they have never seen, Boo Radley. After getting into trouble in his youth, Boo's father has kept him in the family home all this time and, although he's now a man, Boo still stays hidden from the world. Unsurprisingly all kinds of rumours and legends surround him, and the children develop an almost obsessive desire to see this mysterious figure. Meantime Scout's father has reluctantly taken on the task of defending Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a young white woman. Many in the town think he should have refused to take the case, but Atticus Finch believes that all men have the right to equal justice under the law. Over the couple of years covered by the book, Scout will learn much about the prejudices and cruelties and kindnesses of the people in her small town of Maycomb, Alabama. As with so many of the classics, I first read this long ago when the world and I were young, round about the late '70s, I'd imagine. Of course back then it wasn't really a classic yet – it had only been published less than twenty years earlier in 1960. Oddly, my major memories of it have always centred on the Boo Radley storyline rather than the Tom Robinson one, so at that time, had I been asked, I don't think I'd have mentioned race specifically as the major theme of the book. I'd have said it was about how society demonises difference, how justice can be distorted by prejudice, and how poverty brutalises us. Over the years, as its status has grown, and as racism has become a subject much more to the fore over here than it was back in those more innocent-seeming days, I've accepted rather unthinkingly that this clearly is one of its major themes and felt for a long time that I should re-read it rather than relying on my frequent watches of the film (which I also think says more about Boo than race). Re-reading it now with all the current arguments around race in America in the forefront of my mind, it's hard to see Lee's portrayal as being as enlightened and forward-thinking as I'm sure it seemed back when the book was published. To modern eyes, her black characters seem to be very much a product of white wish-fulfilment. They are 'good' because they are respectful and subservient; they are intellectually inferior, not just through lack of educational opportunities but through 'laziness' and lack of ambition; and they are entirely passive, relying on a white knight to defend them, and not only in the legal sense of that word. Even Calpurnia, the Finches' maid, though more educated than most black people in the town through her family's long association with white folk (as servants obviously), comes across rather as the stock black character of older American fiction, whose main function is to show how kind (or sometimes how cruel) their white masters can be if they choose. Calpurnia knows her place and accepts it gratefully, though it's a lowly one. It is of course a sympathetic depiction of the black characters, but one that jars a little now. There is no challenging of the innate superiority of whiteness here – merely an encouragement to treat 'good' black people better. Even Atticus, generally held up as the pinnacle of just men, clearly doesn't think of black people as in any way equal. He believes they have constitutional rights under the law, but that's pretty much as far as he goes. There was an outcry a couple of years ago when Lee's second book (which I haven't read) came out and appeared to show Atticus as racist – while I wouldn't go anywhere close to saying that about him in this book, I didn't feel he could really be seen as fighting for equality either. I have previously criticised that other American novel always hailed as an icon of anti-racism, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, for portraying black people more as pets to be treated kindly than humans to be treated equally. I fear this book left me with the same kind of taste, though a less bitter one. Other aspects of the book have stood up better to the passage of time, I feel. The writing is wonderful, particularly Lee's use of various levels of dialect to differentiate class and social status. Although I have reservations about the black characters, the white characters ring wholly true, as does the town of Maycomb which becomes a character in its own right. Boo's story is still a great commentary on society's wariness of “difference”, although I found the ending a little too neat – the point made a little too pointedly, perhaps – on this re-reading. This time around I was more moved by the rape storyline than Boo's, though more because of Mayella than Tom. Mayella's story (the alleged rape victim) is devastating in its portrayal of the powerlessness of women denied education and opportunity, and the trial scene must surely be one of the most powerful pieces of writing in the English language. Trying to avoid spoilers means I have to be a little vague here, but Lee does a marvellous job of showing both accuser and accused as victims of the white patriarchy. The callous treatment of Mayella both at the time of the rape and during the trial, (yes, even by Atticus), and the way she is then left in the power of the father who has been shown as a violent bully, if not worse, made me wonder who was actually lower down the social order – the black man or the white woman. Of course, Lee makes clear that poverty plays a major role here; one of the major strengths of the book is the comparison Lee draws between black and dirt-poor white people in terms of how they are treated by society, and of the subsequent resentment of the white people – Mayella's father is more offended that Tom should have dared to feel sorry for Mayella than that he might have raped her. It's a searing depiction of the sense of what we now call "white entitlement" that remains at the root of much of the race-related division in American society today. So, although I found Lee's portrayal of the black characters more than a little problematic, I think it's fair to say that the major themes of the book - the inequalities inherent in the justice system, prejudice against difference, white poverty, the powerlessness of under-educated women – all still have much relevance to the race debates going on today, and to contemporary American society as a whole. Judged in its totality therefore, the book fully merits its place as a classic.

I first read To Kill a Mockingbird when I was about seventeen and loved it. So when my book club picked it as our June read, I was delighted to have the incentive to re-read a classic. Twenty years have passed since my first read so my life experience and perspective of the world is vastly different. This made my reading experience different this time round but only in so far as my appreciation for the book's brilliance was consolidated. It's poignant, heart-breaking, and deeply moving but also beautifully written. To Kill a Mockingbird's place in the literary canon is rightly deserved.

Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-Winning 'To Kill a Mockingbird' is a book that hardly needs an introduction, but for the very few who may need one, a brief outline follows. Set in Maycomb, a sleepy, close-knit town in Alabama, during the Great Depression in the 1930s, this novel is told from the perspective of 'Scout' Finch, who lives with her brother, Jem, and their widower father, Atticus, a lawyer. When Dill Harris, a young boy, comes to stay with their next-door neighbour for the school summer holidays, the three children develop a deep fascination with Boo Radley, a recluse who lives in a creepy old house on their street, who has not set foot outside of the family home for decades, and who Jem and Dill plan to coax out into the open. Their plans do not immediately come to fruition, but later the Finch children have other things to focus on when Atticus agrees to defend a young black man, Tom Robinson, who is accused of raping a white woman. Atticus, aware of the hostility his decision has generated within the community, feels he would not be able to look his children in the eye if he did not stand up for his principles; he tells his daughter: "Tom Robinson's case is something that goes to the essence of a man's conscience - Scout, I couldn't go to church and worship God if I didn't try to help that man." But Atticus's noble act sets in motion a chain of events which has lasting consequences for all involved. I first read 'To Kill a Mockingbird' (from choice) when I was in junior school, when the symbolic meaning of this relevant, powerful and moving story most probably went over my head, but I also re-read it more than once during my teenage years where the themes of prejudice, inequality, morality, the examination of different kinds of bravery and the loss of childhood innocence, revealed themselves in more depth with each reading, and where unforgettable lines such as: "...shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird" lodge themselves in the memory so that they are quotable almost without reference to the book - however, I must confess that before this most recent re-reading, I hadn't picked this book up for many years. So what made me choose to re-read this now? Well, I'll admit that the imminent and very eagerly anticipated arrival of Harper Lee's second novel: Go Set a Watchman (which focuses on Scout's life some twenty years after the events in 'To Kill a Mockingbird') made me keen to refresh my memory of the original before I started the sequel, and I must say that I enjoyed every minute of it. 5 Stars.

The story is told through the eyes of an 8 year old white girl, named Scout, while growing up during the 1930's in a small community, where everyone knows each other and their business, within the deep south of America. She has an older brother of 12, called Jem, who she spends much of her time with. Her father is a lawyer trying to single handily bring up his family. As we know, black people in America in that time were treated as second class citizens and segregation was rife. When Scout's father takes upon the case to defend a black man that has allegedly raped a white woman, controversy ensues and there is back lash for him and his children. The peak of the plot is the court case, where Scout's father has to prove the innocence of a black man's word over that of a white man and woman in the presence of a white jury. Considering this was the lynch pin of the story it was unfortunately short. The novel highlights the racial inequality of the time. And Scout's father does a great job of teaching his children that we should all behave the same towards one another regardless of colour. After the trial, there is a burst of tension towards the end of the novel as the father of the woman who was allegedly raped, felt he was humiliated in the court room and goes about trying to exact his revenge on those involved in the case. I really am loathe to say this, especially as this book has won the Pulitzer Prize, sold over 400 million copies, is regarded as one of the great literary works of the 20th century and is a much loved story by an incredible amount of people, but I have to say I found it merely average. I expected so much more. For starter's the first HALF of the novel is concerned with Scout and Jem's childish antics, which I found neither particularly entertaining nor humorous. Although I did like Scout's tomboyish feisty character who was always up for a fight. But I didn't find the dynamics between her and her brother captivating as he always remained emotionally distant and just tolerated her company. Whereas I think if there'd been a powerful bond between them, where he took on a more protective, informative role towards Scout, considering their mother had died, would have made for a far more compelling read. This first half of the book should easily have been edited down to a third of it's length. So, half way into the book we finally get to the crux of the story line. The court case. This segment of the story I genuinely found interesting and especially how Scout's father cleverly spot light's the holes and flaws in the allegedly raped woman's and her father's case against the accused black man. However, this being the 1930's, and knowing the absolute intolerance from white people towards black people, I found the outcome to be highly predictable. A black man tried before a white jury having allegedly committed a crime towards a white woman? It doesn't take an Einstein to foresee the conclusion of this. I did have hope at one point, that the case might take a turn and there would be hope for the accused as Scout's father put's forward an appeal after his client is sentenced. To my disappointment, the author decided to do away with that further plot line with the sudden demise of the now prisoner. I thought there could have been so much more to this novel. The first half of the novel was too lengthy and unnecessary. I felt the court case was too rushed. The court appeal should have been retained. I didn't feel enlightened by the book. I knew of the plight of the awful racism during the era the story is set in. I wasn't moved by any of the relationships and yet I really wanted to be, especially between Scout and Jem. I believe this is definitely a good book for GCSE students to read (although the book was banned in all school libraries in America on its publication in 1960). It teaches the importance of equality and the horrendous racism the black community experienced during that time. But in this age of multi cultural society, its highly likely that today's youth regardless of colour, creed, and religion perceive most people as equal due to the fact they have never known anything different. The book conveys the message of upbringing your children with the understanding of the meaning of equality. Which is to be applauded, but for me, the facile first half of the novel, combined with it's easily foreseeable end and thin plot, I'm sad to say gave me nothing to get excited about.