"Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."
I was pretty sure that I'd read To Kill a Mockingbird when I was younger, but when I started to read it for April's choice of the month for #classiclitbookclub. I'm not actually sure that I have.
For me, it was very much a coming-of-age story, told through the eyes of Scout, an eight-year-old girl who lives alone with her father and older brother. Along with Scout and her brother Jem's perception of life in a small town in the 1930s, I enjoyed reading and learning more about the prejudice and discrimination that existed between black and white people, as well as richer and poorer. Their Dad, Atticus, has incredibly high morals, treating everyone equally and attempting to teach his children to be the same.
The story jumped from situation to situation and from person to person. It was an interesting read as one minute we are wondering just who Boo Radley is, and another moment we are in court with Atticus as he's defending a black man against a white woman. I particularly enjoyed the lighthearted moments as Scout, Jem and their friend Dill, were just kids, doing what kids do and having fun.
I still have no idea whether I've read this before, but I will be reading - or maybe listening next time - again.
About the Book
"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 exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to 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 of one man's struggle for justice. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much.
"To Kill A Mockingbird" became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film.
About Harper
Harper Lee was born in 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama. She attended Huntingdon College and studied law at the University of Alabama. She is the author of the acclaimed To Kill a Mockingbird, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and numerous other literary awards and honours. She died on 19 February 2016.
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