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To Kill a Mockingbird
By Harper Lee

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view ... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it." Atticus to his daughter Scout

What a beautifully written, timeless novel! I was mesmerized from beginning to end ... the simplicity in its complexity. It was a novel that touched me deeply.

I've read some commentaries that state it was sad that Harper Lee never wrote any other novels. How could she? She said it all ... wrote it all ... in this one book. This was her bright and shining moment ... absolutely brilliant.

Growing up, I'd heard the plot was about a black man accused of raping a white girl. Because that it what everyone talked about, I assumed that was the central plot. However, that couldn't be further from the truth. The true central plot was about two children growing up in world of inequalities and inequities, and their father's struggle to raise them to be tolerant, fair, and just. It was a touching portrayal of family, love, life, and loss.

"I wanted you so see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do ... she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew."

Atticus tells this to his son Jem after a neighbor of theirs dies from a long, hard-fought battle with drug addiction. They are powerful words that I think speak volumes to the kind of man Atticus was, and the type of life he tried to live for his children. He was the bravest character I ever knew.

This is a book about racism, acceptance, unconditional love, doing the right thing -- the not the popular thing, standing up for one's rights, standing up when it is right, standing up when no one else will ... it's about courage, bravery, benevolence ...social castes and social mores ... it's about innocence and the wilting of that innocence and it's about coming of age.

This is a MUST READ book, if ever there was one!


Some more of my favorite quotes from the book:
"Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

"The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

"an Atticus, when they finally saw him, why he hadn't done any of those things ... Atticus, he was real nice ... " His hands were under my chin, pulling up the cover, tucking it around me. "Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them."