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Loading... To Kill a Mockingbird (original 1960; edition 1988)by Harper Lee
Work detailsTo Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)
Beautiful, heart-breaking and hilarious. (  ) Mortybanks | May 20, 2013 |  well structured, melancholy, beautiful FKarr | May 19, 2013 | This is one of the greatest books ever written. ( ) katemo | May 16, 2013 | One form school, that has stayed with me. ChloeS83 | May 16, 2013 | Wow. Every time I'm about to pick up a classic I feel a vague apprehension, expecting it to be dusty, dry, and generally removed from life. Fortunately I've noticed a pattern (that I am wrong) and persist in picking these books up. To Kill a Mockingbird made me laugh and cry, and found me unable to put it down. I came out of it feeling wiser in the broadly human sense, which is to say the important one. At the end of the book Scout says that she and Jem wouldn't have much left to learn from school, except maybe algebra. Finishing the book I felt that I had learned greatly from the benefit of these characters' experiences, but also that I was better prepared to learn from my own future experiences for having read it. The juxtaposition of Jem's childish good sense and Atticus' unfailing courtesy in the face of insults made for certainly one of the best books I have ever read. ( )1  lucthegreat | May 10, 2013 |
 A book that we thought instructed us about the world tells us, instead, about the limitations of Jim Crow liberalism in Maycomb, Alabama.  Its sentiments and moral grandeur are as unimpeachable as the character of its hero, Atticus. ... It's time to stop pretending that "To Kill a Mockingbird" is some kind of timeless classic that ranks with the great works of American literature. Its bloodless liberal humanism is sadly dated, as pristinely preserved in its pages as the dinosaur DNA in "Jurassic Park." Author Lee, 34, an Alabaman, has written her first novel with all of the tactile brilliance and none of the preciosity generally supposed to be standard swamp-warfare issue for Southern writers. The novel is an account of an awakening to good and evil, and a faint catechistic flavor may have been inevitable. But it is faint indeed; Novelist Lee's prose has an edge that cuts through cant, and she teaches the reader an astonishing number of useful truths about little girls and about Southern life. There are some improbable and sentimental moments in the story, but there are also great moments of laughter that belong to memory and a novelist's hand... Miss Lee's original characters are people to cherish in this winning first novel by a fresh writer with something significant to say, South and North. The dialogue of Miss Lee's refreshingly varied characters is a constant delight in its authenticity and swift revelation of personality. The events connecting the Finches with the Ewell-Robinson lawsuit develop quietly and logically, unifying the plot and dramatizing the author's level-headed plea for interracial understanding... Moviegoing readers will be able to cast most of the roles very quickly, but it is no disparagement of Miss Lee's winning book to say that it could be the basis of an excellent film. Has the adaptationHas as a student's study guideHarper Lee's to Kill a Mocking Bird (Monarch Notes) by Donald F. Roden CliffsNotes on Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird by Eva Fitzwater To Kill a Mockingbird (coles notes) by Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (York Notes) by Beth Sims Has as a teacher's guide
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Set in the small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Depression, To Kill a Mockingbird follows three years in the life of 8-year-old Scout Finch, her brother, Jem, and their father, Atticus--three years punctuated by the arrest and eventual trial of a young black man accused of raping a white woman. Though her story explores big themes, Harper Lee chooses to tell it through the eyes of a child. The result is a tough and tender novel of race, class, justice, and the pain of growing up.
Like the slow-moving occupants of her fictional town, Lee takes her time getting to the heart of her tale; we first meet the Finches the summer before Scout's first year at school. She, her brother, and Dill Harris, a boy who spends the summers with his aunt in Maycomb, while away the hours reenacting scenes from Dracula and plotting ways to get a peek at the town bogeyman, Boo Radley. At first the circumstances surrounding the alleged rape of Mayella Ewell, the daughter of a drunk and violent white farmer, barely penetrate the children's consciousness. Then Atticus is called on to defend the accused, Tom Robinson, and soon Scout and Jem find themselves caught up in events beyond their understanding. During the trial, the town exhibits its ugly side, but Lee offers plenty of counterbalance as well--in the struggle of an elderly woman to overcome her morphine habit before she dies; in the heroism of Atticus Finch, standing up for what he knows is right; and finally in Scout's hard-won understanding that most people are essentially kind "when you really see them." By turns funny, wise, and heartbreaking, To Kill a Mockingbird is one classic that continues to speak to new generations, and deserves to be reread often. --Alix Wilber
(retrieved from Amazon Wed, 02 Jan 2013 16:46:27 -0500)
The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence, and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina and quiet heroism of one man's struggle for justice, in this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic that has been translated into more than 40 languages.
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