THE SUNDAY REVIEW | TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD – HARPER LEE

I read this a few years (okay, decades) ago, and I remembered loving it and being deeply affected by it… but that’s about it. I’ve been meaning to re-read it for years now, pretty much since Go Set a Watchman came out back in 2015. I recently read a book called The Reading List, which is a lovely novel if you haven’t checked it out yet, but in that book the first book on said reading list is – you guessed it – To Kill a Mockingbird. Once I finished that book I wanted to live in that world a little longer, so I decided to pick this one up. I finished it in no time flat via audiobook (a great listening/reading experience), and all the magic I remember from when I read it as a kid is still there, possibly and then some.

For those who haven’t read it yet, this is the story of a family in a fictional town in the American South. The story is set in the 1930s, at a time when racism was rampant and Black skin denoted, in the eyes of the community, guilt. Our main character is Scout Finch, a young white girl who lives with her older brother, Jem, and their father Atticus Finch. Atticus is a lawyer for the town, and a wise and loving father. There’s also Calpernia, who helps to cook, clean and take care of the children. No mother is mentioned, so we are left to assume Atticus is widowed, but don’t know any details about how. The story is told from the perspective of Scout, who is a child and therefore has a limited understanding of some of the events that are occurring around her.

The story roams around covering a lot of ground, from the structure of the community to how a new teacher reacts to Scout already knowing how to read (not well); to the mysterious neighbour, Boo Radley, who lives down the street but has never been seen; to Scout’s desire not to do anything ladylike (I feel you, sis); to the adventures the kids have with a boy named Dill who spends summers with his aunt on their street. The book builds to the climax – Atticus defending a Black man, Tom Robinson, who has been accused of raping a white woman – and the fallout surrounding that one event and how the ripples from it reach out to affect the entire town.

There’s a lovely sense of innocence that’s evoked by telling this story of a very serious and horrible situation through the eyes of a child. By looking through Scout’s eyes, we shed any cynicism we’ve developed as adults when we think about justice and moral right and wrong. In doing so, the injustice of Robinson’s arrest is made much more simple, much more clear, and much more poignant. Scout doesn’t understand why something so unfair could happen, and even though as adults we understand the history and just how evil human beings can be, because we’re seeing it through her eyes, we’re not allowed to skim past it either. We have to be outraged, and we have to feel the impact.

I love this book. There’s not much I’d criticize about it. Perhaps the one thing I could discuss is that I don’t know how realistic all the characters are in this book. Atticus is written as nearly infallible, as always having a plan in everything he does, and playing to the mindset and priorities of each person around him to get his point across. He’s an awesome character, but I suspect maybe a bit too good to be true. Likewise though I love Scout and Jem, there is a precociousness to their understanding of what is happening. Some of the edges are blurred by childhood lack of experience and understanding, but we get a very clear account of events and it’s easy to see what’s happening in a way I’m not sure a child’s account could actually accomplish. But I can forgive this because both of these things were necessary in order for the book to work.

I am glad that I was given a push to read this one again. I think it’s an important look at racism and how small communities can be both insulating and toxic, often simultaneously. It is written by a white author, which always gives me pause when a book is focused on racism, but Lee doesn’t try to write from the perspective of any of the Black characters. Even Calpurnia is an enigmatic character, as much as she’s viewed as part of the family. It’s also an older book now, and things have changed a lot. That said, reading as a white reader, it didn’t feel overtly problematic to me, as much as it perhaps could have been served by a Black author who would have been able to provide some of those missing perspectives. But it’s a book about white children becoming aware of and reckoning with the ugliness of racial viewpoints (and sexist ones at times, too) during a particular moment in American history, and it does accomplish that. I can see why it’s often assigned reading in schools, because it opens up history to questions about how Black people have been treated (and are still being treated), and for kids who maybe haven’t been raised talking about this topic, I could see this book planting the seed of critical thinking and awareness of what racism is and does.

Definitely a book I think should be read widely, and re-read by those who read it in school. It offers up a lot to adult readers that I don’t remember from my last reading (I paid much closer attention to Atticus’s decisions and how he chooses to interact with his children and the impact that has on them now that I’m a parent myself) but definitely still holds that magic I remember from my first reading. It’s one that you can’t easily put down once you’ve become immersed, and that will absolutely wreck any strict bedtime rules you have! A great one for discussion and left me with a lot going on in my mind!

“Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

A lawyer’s advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee’s classic novel—a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. 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—but the weight of history will only tolerate so much.

One of the best-loved classics of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has earned many distinctions since its original publication in 1960. It won the Pulitzer Prize, has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, and was been made into an enormously popular movie. It was also named the best novel of the twentieth century by librarians across the country (Library Journal). HarperCollins is proud to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the book’s publication with this special hardcover edition. – Goodreads

Book Title: To Kill a Mockingbird
Author: Harper Lee
Series: No
Edition: Hardback/Audiobook
Published By: Harper/Audible
Released: May 11, 2010 (first published July 11, 1960
Genre: Fiction, Classic, Race, Childhood, Justice, Human Rights
Pages: 323
Date Read: July 19-20, 2022
Rating: 10/10
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.27/5 (5,342,215 ratings)