To Kill a Mockingbird Review

by Harper Lee

Overall 5.00 of 5 view all 4 reviews

cotell
Los Angeles, CA

Belongs In Everyone's Collection

avid reader

Pros

Scout is a perfect character

JAN

2008

To Kill a Mockingbird —

First, I looked up Harper Lee online and I'm afraid that this is her only published book. However, she did write a few articles that you can read online:
Love in other Words - Vogue -
http://mockingbird.chebucto.org/love.html
Christmas to me - McCalls -
http://mockingbird.chebucto.org/christmas.html
When Children Discover America -
http://mockingbird.chebucto.org/when.html
Romance and High Adventure -
http://mockingbird.chebucto.org/pickett.html

Her full name is Nellie Harper Lee - I wonder if she dropped the Nellie part so publishers would mistakenly think she was a man and read her material. She is also still alive and living in Monroeville, Alabama. And once you read about her and her family, you will know that she is not the only amazing person in that family (guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree).

I loved Scout. In fact, I get dibs on that name for a little girl- or did Bruce Willis and Demi Moore beat me to it? I loved that she wanted to be a person first and then a girl. And she supports the fact that little kids know the meaning of life and forget it as they get older. She had a great relationship with her brother and father and they encouraged her to be true to herself and not follow the stereotypes of ladies of that time. I loved her way of thinking especially how she drew the conclusion that if she starting swearing her dad would assume she picked up the bad habits from school and pull her out. And when she wanted to write a letter to Dill in invisible ink just to drive him crazy, I almost ruined the book because I was drinking a Diet Pepsi at the time.

I have a feeling that Harper Lee was just like Scout and have you noticed that all early 1900 female authors are tomboys? Louisa Mae Alcott was Jo in Little Women, Laura Wilder wrote about herself. It just goes to show you that the truly creative women were those that went against the stereotypes of the time.

I'm not sure I like the fact that Atticus allowed them to call him by his first name and not Dad, but aside from that he was the perfect role model. He talked to them, not at them, and he always listened. He firmly believed that it was important for his children to respect him and by NOT following the creed "Do as I say, not as I do", Scout and Jem would be able to look up to him. He wanted his children to look beyond the color of one's skin, therefore he did. He treated everyone as equal despite their race, family background, age or education and if more people did that, there wouldn't be as many problems today. His teaching methods worked. You can tell how much the children loved and looked up to him. Nothing hurt them more then having their father be ashamed of them. They didn't keep things from him because they thought he wouldn't understand. They kept things from him because they didn't want him to get hurt. And they always listened, because to disobey would hurt Atticus.

I loved how Scout could jump in Atticus's lap whenever she wanted and he would hold her even as she was getting older. I bet as Scout gets older, she will always feel that nothing is safer then when you sit on your dad's lap. Atticus was everything that both parents should be all rolled into one. And what he couldn't do (which wasn't much), Cal picked up the slack.

Atticus's brother was another one of my favorite characters even though he wasn't mentioned a lot. When he realized his error after punishing Scout for beating up her cousin and tried to make it right, it showed that he also strived to earn their respect just like Atticus.

It's easy to see with all of the problems in the world why Boo Radley feels safer hiding from away from it. It takes a special person to admit defeat to the cliche "if you can't beat them join them" and turn his back on things he doesn't understand. I think everyone has a little bit of Boo in us, when we shut out the problems of the outside. Of course, we all have a little of Scout in us too especially when we come out fighting if anyone tries to hurt our family.

The court case. Wow, the sad thing is, is I can see that happening even today When the book was published in 1960, discrimination was still a big problem. I did like how Harper Lee brought up Hitler's actions against the Jews. It was obvious that what was going on in America with African Americans was no different in her eyes than what Hitler was doing, we were just more discreet about it. Perhaps because deep inside, Americans knew it was wrong to treat African Americans as third class citizens so we tried to hide it more. Hitler was right out in the open with his actions.

I listed a few links that I discovered about To Kill A Mocking Bird.
http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/Belmont_HS/tkm/ The Student Survivor Guide. - This is amazing it has definitions of the harder words and
references to the "Allusions and Idioms" that are used.
http://mockingbird.chebucto.org/ - This talks more about the author and her family.