Growing Up in Alabama

#45 - To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Finished 9/4/07
Rating: 5/5
Total Pages: 281
Reason for Reading: b-a-w ATF list
REVIEW: I can’t believe I’ve never read this book before. Sometimes some of the best ones slip by, I guess. I knew it was about racism, and law, and justice, and community. What I didn’t know is that it’s mostly about childhood and learning. Certainly the trial of Tom Robinson is a pivotal point in the novel, but To Kill a Mockingbird is about so much more. It’s about growing up in Alabama in the 1920s, it’s about the games that children play, and it’s about social conventions and expectations. I love that Lee told the story through the eyes of a child, the precocious and observant nine-year-old Scout. In my opinion, the brilliance of this book is in describing how an adult world impacts on children, what they take in from the world they are traveling through, and how they learn about and react to the experiences of the grown-ups around them. Brilliantly well-told story.