To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I had read this book in high school. This one was so accessible that I did read it when assigned. A 50th anniversary has been everywhere in the last year so I decided to revisit this book again.

It is masterful. Librarians rated this book as the best book of the twentieth century. Because the book is written so well and the narrative is so easy to follow perhaps the book is considered not in the canon with Hemingway, Faulkner and other great American writers of the last century. Of course writing only one book will limit your comparison.

The story itself is told through the voice of Scout between the ages of six and nine in a small town called Maycomb, Alabama. Her father Atticus Finch is a moral, upright man who is a calming presence on all he comes into contact with. The brilliance of the story is that we until the last third of the book know that Atticus will be defending a black man accused of attacking a white woman and this is in the background of the youthful exploits of Scout and her brother Jem. The trial and its results takes center stage in the last third as well as the characters responses to it.

This book has in some cases been deemed controversial and offensive as being written in 1960 about the mid thirties in the deep South Scout being a small child and the narrator dos not have very expansive visions of black folks saying at one point " He's just a n***er." Certainly this is difficult in today's world to read.

However the background setting is neccesary, the story theme certainly tackles big issues. A wonderfully accessible book telling a very important story.

Read this. Move it to the top of your list. A wonderful book.