Do you agree that To Kill A Mocking bird is one of the best books ever written, if not THE BEST?

[Wylee]

That's how I feel.

If you agree, I would like to know just What it is that makes it so great?

I just can't seem to come up with a good explanation.

[Strayer]

Yes and the movie was one of the best also.

[moose_tracker]

To Kill a mocking bird is going way, way back in my yonder years.. It was something that was on my high school required reading list. Now being required reading probably hurt it going on my "best book ever written" catagory.. But I would say that I did find it the one and only high school required reading that was an enjoyable read..

It came out at a good time when people needed to learn that our predjudices about each other hurt ourselfs and our culture. The Father/ lawyer of the book was such a wonderful character that everyone rooted for, and had to admire for his fairness.. It got others to want to be that way in their daily lives of working with others..

Seeing the world through the eyes of the main character "Scout" was a great medium. She is of an age where she is starting to see and understand the ugliness of the world. So you go through her thoughts as see tries to sort out what she is witnessing.. It shows people that this is not what we want to teach our kids and probably shamed some at the time the book was written into the fact that this was what they were teaching their kids.

The book had the obvious predjudice of the black man on trial, and the story line of that. But it also had the predudice the kids had to Boo Radley.. So their was parrellel story-lines of predjudice going on. One ends horribly, and one ends (I don't know if you can say wonderfully..) But I thought well, as Scout did learn to respect and maybe even admire Boo Radley.. You felt she learned fairness from her father, even though the rest of her culture had alot to learn.

The story came at the right time in our culture right around the time of Martin Luther King, JFK and desegregation.. White people needed to look at their behavior and change..

I also like "Guess Who is Coming to Dinner" which was a play & movie with Sidney Poitier as being great entertainment for this time period that carried a powerful and much needed message.. Could they have picked any better actor the Sidney Poitier to get white people to acknowledge that blacks could be our social equals? I have heard that blacks never liked this movie as it didn't portray the real black culture at this time.. But, I think it was just perfect to get the message across to the white people that blacks could be something else if not sterio-typed and forced to play the role the white men cast them in, in order to survive.

Both of these I feel were literary classics that came at the perfect time in our history when the message had to be communicated..  I set both of them into making very important a contribution to the movement, that Martin Luther King set in place.. Change that came peacefully, with intelligent debates and standing up for your rights peacefully.

[gobasso]

Most books are great for several reasons. I think the author's use of Scout as the narrator is inspired. Lee captures the innocence of youth coming to terms with difficult subjects and does it without being preachy or heavy handed. Atticus is the father we want to be and wished we had growing up. But to me the beauty of the story and writing lies in its willingness to show life as it was and is. Parts are beautiful, some are scary and not every conflict has a happy ending that can be solved in half and hour. At least that's my two cents.

[MacMcK1957]

It was truly an excellent book, and the movie is one of the best novel adaptations to the screen that I can think of.  I found it interesting that whoever cast the part of the neighbor boy Dill (who comes and goes in the story since he only spends summers in the town) seems to have been aware that the character was based on Harper Lee's childhood friend Truman Capote.  The kid comes across as one might imagine Capote to have been like as a child.

[Tim40744]

It's one of my very favorites as well. I've heard that everyone has (at least) one novel in them...and *wow* this was Lee's one novel. I've often wondered what else she could have written...that's a bit sad to consider.

[Sandikal]

To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the few books I will re-read.  I first read it in third grade when I was about Scout's age.  At that time, I really identified with her and with the theme of prejudice, but the rest just went over my head.  Later on, I discovered the deeper significance of racism and the chasm between blacks & whites, rich and poor.  During my most recent reading, I highlighted a bunch of stuff that Atticus said.  It means something different every time I read it.

[patgolfneb]

I agree, it also is the perfect example why individuals who refuse to read any book classified as young adult are missing out. I kind of wish books with primarily young characters weren't automatically marketed this way.

[Wylee]

so far, I'm getting that the novel has these elements:

1. the main character (narrator) is coming of age.

2. the sub-plots have parallel themes, yet different outcomes.

3. it tells a simple story, yet when you re-read, you find something deeper, more significant.

4. Atticus is someone everyone can admire, yet is realistically human.

and may I add, that it seems to have a fairly equal balance of good and evil.

it isn't a mostly happy story, but neither is it a depressing story.  it straddles the fence.

[keriflur]

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patgolfneb wrote:
I agree, it also is the perfect example why individuals who refuse to read any book classified as young adult are missing out. I kind of wish books with primarily young characters weren't automatically marketed this way.

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I recently read a really great (IMO) blog post on this by YA author Laini Taylor.  The post is actually from 2009 (I guess there was some drama about this topic back then).

http://growwings.blogspot.com/2009/04/chiming-in-again-on-whole-ya-ghetto.html

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I also love To Kill a Mockingbird and agree it's one of the best books out there.  It's been over a decade since I last read it and need to find the time to read it again.

[Wylee]

well I checked out the link you provided, but apparently

I've know idea how to navigate that blog.... 

wait, you didn't mean the blog was about TKAM,

you meant it was a discussion about people

who refuse to read YA novels??

the light bulb just went on.  : S

[RHWright]

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patgolfneb wrote:
I agree, it also is the perfect example why individuals who refuse to read any book classified as young adult are missing out. I kind of wish books with primarily young characters weren't automatically marketed this way.

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There are many who refuse to read YA books.

But though TKMB is often taught in middle/high school, I don't think I've seen it labelled/discussed as a young adult title. It always seems to be shelved in the literature section in the bookstores and the adult fiction section in the library.

I think adults sometimes avoid this book because it's stuck with that other label: "classic."

It brings back too many memories of the numerous books they were assigned to read, were poorly taught, and ended up not enjoying. So they avoid any classic literature in adulthood because they think it will be a painfully boring slog.

[keriflur]

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RHWright wrote:

It brings back too many memories of the numerous books they were assigned to read, were poorly taught, and ended up not enjoying. So they avoid any classic literature in adulthood because they think it will be a painfully boring slog.

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And sometimes it is a painfully boring slog.  *looks pointedly at Dickens and Hugo*  But sometimes it's beautiful magic, like TKaM or, for me, Brave New World.

[keriflur]

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Wylee wrote:

well I checked out the link you provided, but apparently

I've know idea how to navigate that blog.... 

wait, you didn't mean the blog was about TKAM,

you meant it was a discussion about people

who refuse to read YA novels??

the light bulb just went on.  : S

---

LOL yes, the article is about people who believe that if a novel is good it should be elevated from the "YA ghetto" and put on the adult shelves, leaving only the slog on the teen shelves.

[patgolfneb]

I found the tone of the article a bit much. The author made plenty of negative assumptions of their own. That authors that objected about the YA designaion didn't care about young readers, that books with young characters meant the book was meant for young readers etc.

I don't know the original purpose behind the YA designation. Was it really only interest based  or a also an easy way to identify books that did not contain adult physical relatioships and violence?

The ability of publishers and book chains to identify who a book will appeal is spotty at best. Many of the best books like TKB, appear simple but are really stories being told on more than one level. It is reasonable for an author to fear a narrow designation may prevent a book reaching a large part of its audience.

[keriflur]

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patgolfneb wrote:

I found the tone of the article a bit much. The author made plenty of negative assumptions of their own. That authors that objected about the YA designaion didn't care about young readers, that books with young characters meant the book was meant for young readers etc.

I don't know the original purpose behind the YA designation. Was it really only interest based  or a also an easy way to identify books that did not contain adult physical relatioships and violence?

The ability of publishers and book chains to identify who a book will appeal is spotty at best. Many of the best books like TKB, appear simple but are really stories being told on more than one level. It is reasonable for an author to fear a narrow designation may prevent a book reaching a large part of its audience.

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Aren't all designations narrow?  Couldn't any truly great book be classed on multiple shelves?

[patgolfneb]

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keriflur wrote:

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patgolfneb wrote:

I found the tone of the article a bit much. The author made plenty of negative assumptions of their own. That authors that objected about the YA designaion didn't care about young readers, that books with young characters meant the book was meant for young readers etc.

I don't know the original purpose behind the YA designation. Was it really only interest based  or a also an easy way to identify books that did not contain adult physical relatioships and violence?

The ability of publishers and book chains to identify who a book will appeal is spotty at best. Many of the best books like TKB, appear simple but are really stories being told on more than one level. It is reasonable for an author to fear a narrow designation may prevent a book reaching a large part of its audience.

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Aren't all designations narrow?  Couldn't any truly great book be classed on multiple shelves?

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No, they vary from tiny to huge. Is explanation really needed?

[Nancy_BC]

I follow a website called Letters of Note' that publishes interesting letters from all kinds of people.

Interesting that today is one by Harper Lee responding to the news that To Kill A Mockingbird had been removed from  school.libraries in Hanover County Here it is:

Early-1966, believing its contents to be "immoral," the Hanover County School Board in Virginia decided to remove all copies of Harper Lee's classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, from the county's school libraries. As soon as she was alerted, Lee responded perfectly by way of the following letter, written to, and later published in, The Richmond News Leader.

Also sent, as mentioned in the letter, was a contribution to the Beadle Bumble Fund — a project set up by the newspaper in 1959 to highlight/compensate for "official stupidities," and which subsequently gave away copies of the banned book to all children who asked.

(Source: Understanding To Kill a Mockingbird; Image: Harper Lee, via.)

Monroeville, Alabama
January, 1966

Editor, The News Leader:

Recently I have received echoes down this way of the Hanover County School Board's activities, and what I've heard makes me wonder if any of its members can read.

Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that "To Kill a Mockingbird" spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code of honor and conduct, Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage of all Southerners. To hear that the novel is "immoral" has made me count the years between now and 1984, for I have yet to come across a better example of doublethink.

I feel, however, that the problem is one of illiteracy, not Marxism. Therefore I enclose a small contribution to the Beadle Bumble Fund that I hope will be used to enroll the Hanover County School Board in any first grade of its choice.

Harper Lee