To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird during a very tense time racially in her home state of Alabama. The South was still segregated, forcing blacks to use separate facilities apart from those used by whites, in almost every aspect of society.

Scout and Jem Finch are growing up in the tired old Alabama town of Maycomb. Their father, Atticus, is the local lawyer and as a single parent tries to raise his children with honor and respect to their individualism. With the Depression on times are hard, and there is no money to be found anywhere in town.

The surface of the story is an Alcottish filigree of games, mischief, squabbles with an older brother, troubles at school, and the like. None of it is painful, for Scout and Jem are happy children, brought up with angelic cleverness by their father and his old Negro housekeeper. Nothing fazes them much or long. Even the new first-grade teacher, a devotee of the "Dewey decimal system" who is outraged to discover that Scout can already read and write, proves endurable in the long run.

What moves To Kill a Mockingbird to classic status is its morality and ability to draw sympathy out of readers as much today as when it was written in 1960. To Kill a Mockingbird deals with heavy issues--racism, oppression, injustice. Amazingly, it is able to handle these deep and sensitive areas without feeling depressing or preachy. Lee accomplishes this by making the narrator a child and allowing us to learn along with her.