To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I am running a wee bit late but I finally got to the party! I enjoyed reading other (prompter) bloggers posts about the books they read for banned books week. I liked looking at all the banned books lists and seeing how many off of each one I had read - shamefully low numbers as always! But the best part of Banned Books Week was reading To Kill A Mockingbird because (gasp) I had never read it before!




From the Amazon product description: "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.

I really should have gotten to this one sooner, it is good and I've had fifty years to get around to it since this is the 50th anniversary year. I am intimidated by the classics but once started this was an easy read and hard to put down. I loved that the story is told through the eyes of these young children, their innocence is such a contrast to the evils around them. I won't go on about how great it is because you know that. I'll tell you the one really good thing that experienced...Tween liked it. He had to read it for school which was the impetus for me finally picking it up as well. And he liked it. He was ahead of me and eager to talk about it as I read. He wanted to tell me more of what happens but restrained himself because he wanted me to enjoy the story unfolding too. Tween has been a tough reading nut to crack and I certainly can't say that any flood gates have opened but it is a first, a book he enjoys, it proves that such a thing exists and now we just have to try to find another one.