To Kill a Mockingbird | Harper Lee | Never to Late to read it

To Kill a Mockingbird | Harper Lee | Great Novel (plus great satire of educators)

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To Kill a Mockingbird

	To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee Grand Central Publishing, 1988 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 1760 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Never to Late to read it

I never saw the movie. I never read the book until this year. To think what I missed over the years almost makes me cry. The reader gets caught up in the family life of Atticus, Scout and Jem. You root for the underdog. Not a fast paced book, the reader is nonetheless caught up in the intracies of Southern living and Southern morals in the 1930's. It is not a book to be overlooked.

Great Novel (plus great satire of educators)

A friend in New York called to say, "I just listened to To Kill A Mockingbird on tape. There's a lot of funny stuff about education and John Dewey. I wouldn't have understood it if I hadn't read all those articles on your site."

Now I had to order this book. I had avoided it all these decades because it was such a Teacher's Pet; kids are made to read this novel because it says all the right things about racial injustice. Well, I read it, and enjoyed it thoroughly. It's good history (Alabama, 1935); good sociology; and good story-telling, lightning in a bottle, actually, But you probably know that. So let me mention a funny irony. Public schools make kids read TKAM, but TKAM is a touch critic of those schools.

My friend exaggerated; the bits about education hardly add up to three pages. But they are delicious! The set-up is that the narrator, Scout Finch, age six, is off to her first day of school on page 15, with this thought: "I had never looked forward more to anything in my life."

But there's a problem: she can already read, at a high level. The teacher, discovering this fact, looked at Scout "with more than faint distaste. Miss Caroline told me to tell my father not to teach me any more, it would interfere with my reading...'It's best to begin reading with a fresh mind. You tell him I'll take over from here and try to undo the damage...Your father does not know how to teach.'"

That's so pretty, you might want to cry. An entire cosmos of educational stupidity is right there. Scout goes on: "I mumbled that I was sorry and retired meditating upon my crime. I never deliberately learned to read, but somehow I had been wallowing illicitly in the daily papers."

At lunch Scout tells her brother she wants to quit school. He reassures her, "Don't worry...Our teacher says Miss Caroline's introducing a new way of teaching. She learned about it in college...It's the Dewey Decimal System." According to Scout, this consisted "of Miss Caroline waving cards at us on which were printed `the,' `cat,' `rat,' `man,' and `you.'" That, of course, is Whole Word; and we are still fighting this crabgrass 70 years later.

Scout is bored so she writes a letter to a friend. Miss Caroline catches her and says: "We don't write in first grade. We print. You won't learn to write until you're in the third grade."

You can see what a deft touch Harper Lee has. It's sweet, and sly, and scathing. Melvil Dewey, by the way, created the Dewey Decimal System. That little inside joke is one example of what I mean by "sly."

As for Professor John Dewey, he has caused a lot of trouble. I like to think that Harper Lee and I are in total accord about this guy. Discussing Miss Caroline's origins, Scout notes that the teacher was from a part of Alabama that was full of "Liquor Interests, Big Mules, steel companies, Republicans, professors, and other persons of no background."

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favorite book- EVER

I have read this book many times over the years since I was a child. It is a wonderful story with vivid characters and an engrossing plot. I read a lot- a whole lot. Probably 3 or 4 books a week since I learned how. This is simply my favorite book of all time- for too many reasons to tell. I haven't ever met anyone who DIDN't like this book. I can't wait to read it to my children- its well worth your time and money- even if you've already seen the movie.

Kevin's book review

To Kill a Mockingbird

The book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. It's about two children in the 1930s going through the hardship of their father's losing battle in court. Jem, Scout and their friend Dill, spend their summers getting up to something. But as a controversial court case arises, they have to deal with derogatory terms and the fact that the case is doomed. Atticus, Jem and Scout's dad, has to defend a black man who is accused of raping a woman. It will take a miracle to show the town the innocence of this man.

Lee is a great author and it shows in her work. The language Lee uses is appropriate for a southern town of the 1930s. She also describes the characters very well, and gives a good background of them all. Forty-eight years since the book was published, and it's still a favorite among many. This book is good for readers who like suspense and good morals.

By Kevin

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Great Book!

It says TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD - HARPER LEE. And there is a picture of a mockingbird flying away from a tree that has a clock and a ball of string in it. Ha!

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, page 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

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