book reviews to kill a mockingbird

• Non-Fiction
• Author’s Corner
• Reader’s Corner
• Writing Guide
• Book Marketing Services
• Write for us

Book Review

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, 1961

Author: Harper Lee

Publisher: J. B. Lippincott & Co.

Genre: Bildungsroman, Historical Fiction

First Publication: 1960

Language:  English

Major Characters: Scout Finch, Atticus Finch, Jem Finch, Arthur Radley, Mayella Ewell, Aunt Alexandra, Bob Ewell, Calpurnia (housekeeper), Tom Robinson, Miss Maudie Atkinson, Judge John Taylor, Dill Harris, Heck Tate, Stephanie Crawford

Setting Place: The fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression

Theme:  Community and Convention, Female Sexuality and Friendship, Faith, Suffering, and God’s Will, Science and Superstition, Justice and Judgment

Narrator:  First person

Book Summary: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, 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, also a classic.

Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee takes readers to the roots of human behavior – to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos.

Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.

Book Review: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

With endless books and infinitely more to be written in the future, it is rare occasion that I take the time to reread a novel. And this time it’s To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, a timeless classic. The first time I read this I was much, much younger and I remember loving it then. Over fifteen years later, it still held so much for me – wonderful language and characters that I never forgot about, profound themes explored , and relevancy even so many years later. Harper Lee is one of the best female authors.

The story in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is told from the point of view of Scout (Jean-Louise Finch), a six year old girl , through various events that happen in the town of Maycomb and in particular, the court case of Tom Robinson as her father Atticus Finch acts as Tom’s defence lawyer. Tom, a black man who has been accused of raping a young white woman, has to endure multiple racial attacks. Atticus, widely described as the “most enduring fictional image of racial heroism”, describes the events to Scout so that she sees that all people should be treated equally.

“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.”

The narrator of this story is young tomboy Jean Louise (Scout), and her observations of Maycomb and people’s behavior are simple, honest, and visually very rich. I had no problem picturing Scout, Jem and Dill’s childish efforts to draw Boo Radley out of his house, or Calpurnia taking the kids to a colored church.

But when, after 128 pages, the court case begins and the plot really becomes intriguing, you immediately feel a rise in tension and excitement. Here Jem and Atticus become the main characters instead of Scout because they are more aware of the risks and importance of the case, although Scout’s moment with the mob was heartwrenchingly beautiful in it’s innocence.

“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.”

The last part of the book was less tense but never dull: it was important to show the aftermath and the effects of the case on different class – and races – of people to convey the impact of Atticus’ actions. Because back in 1935 and even now, in our current political situation, standing up for what’s right while the majority is against you, is an incredible brave and difficult thing to do.

One thing especially about this story that stood out to me, are the interesting gender roles in this book. We have Atticus who isn’t only presented as an amazing father but also as a great male character, because he’s patient, courteous, clever…but not traditionally masculine. In contrast with Bob Ewell, the main antagonist, Atticus isn’t physically strong, doesn’t use strong language, and hates violence (example: he keeps his shooting skills a secret from his children).

“The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

His sister, aunt Alexandra, is a very traditional female figure who wants Scout to behave more ‘lady like’, and because Scout doesn’t like her (at first), we as readers dislike her too. Acting as her opposites are Calpurnia and Miss Maudie, who neither show traditional feminine characteristics like politeness and charm, but both are presented as good and right.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a well-loved book for many good reasons, but I was very surprised by its diverse male and female characters, who make this story even richer than it already is.

Recent Articles

The atlas six by olivie blake, people we meet on vacation by emily henry, the house in the cerulean sea by tj klune, the summer place by jennifer weiner, one italian summer by rebecca serle, related posts:, leave a reply cancel reply.

Sign me up for the newsletter!

Stay on top - Get the daily news in your inbox

Subscribe to our newsletter.

To be updated with all the latest news, offers and special announcements.

Recent Posts

Popular category.

• Book Review 643
• Reader's Corner 413
• Author's Corner 182
• Author Interview 176
• Book List 112
• Mystery Thriller 98
• Historical Fiction 82

The Bookish Elf is your single, trusted, daily source for all the news, ideas and richness of literary life. The Bookish Elf is a site you can rely on for book reviews, author interviews, book recommendations, and all things books.

Contact us: [email protected]

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

• For Parents
• For Educators
• Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

• Get the app
• Movie Reviews
• Best Movie Lists
• Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

• Best TV Lists
• Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
• Common Sense Selections for TV
• Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

• Book Reviews
• Best Book Lists
• Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

• Game Reviews
• Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

• Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

• Podcast Reviews
• Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

• App Reviews
• Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

• YouTube Channel Reviews
• YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

• Preschoolers (2-4)
• Little Kids (5-7)
• Big Kids (8-9)
• Pre-Teens (10-12)
• Teens (13+)
• Screen Time
• Social Media
• Online Safety
• Identity and Community

Explaining the News to Our Kids

• Family Tech Planners
• Digital Skills
• All Articles
• Latino Culture
• Black Voices
• Asian Stories
• Native Narratives
• LGBTQ+ Pride
• Best of Diverse Representation List

Celebrating Black History Month

Movies and TV Shows with Arab Leads

Celebrate Hip-Hop's 50th Anniversary

To kill a mockingbird, common sense media reviewers.

Classic novel examines American racism and justice.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this book.

Author Harper Lee offers a snapshot of small-town

Atticus Finch tells Scout, "You never really under

Atticus Finch, Jem and Scout's father, courageousl

A drunk breaks a kid's arm. A man is killed with a

Frequent use of "damn," one "bastard," and one "so

Mr. Raymond drinks Coke (though others think it's

Mrs. Dubose is secretly addicted to morphine. A ma

Parents need to know that Harper Lee's 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird addresses the terrible impact of racism in America through a little girl's point of view. The story takes place in Depression-era Alabama, in the fictional town of Maycomb, which Lee patterned after her own hometown of Monroeville. The…

Educational Value

Author Harper Lee offers a snapshot of small-town life in Alabama during the 1930s, including views about race and some information about events taking place in Europe leading up to world War II. Readers will also learn about 1930s gender roles, education, and divisions created by economic status.

Positive Messages

Atticus Finch tells Scout, "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view -- until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

Positive Role Models

Atticus Finch, Jem and Scout's father, courageously defends Tom Robinson in a town where racial prejudice is firmly entrenched. He risks not only public disapproval but also his own safety to make sure Tom receives as fair a trial as possible. He imparts many lessons to his children verbally, but his actions speak loudest, teaching them empathy, and to judge people by their actions rather than by the color of their skin.

Violence & Scariness

A drunk breaks a kid's arm. A man is killed with a knife. Atticus and his children face down a lynch mob in the middle of the night. Town gossip includes a story about a man stabbing a family member with scissors. A rabid dog is shot in the street. The trial at the center of the story involves a man accused of raping and beating a woman. A prisoner is shot trying to escape.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Frequent use of "damn," one "bastard," and one "son-of-a-bitch." The "N" word and "('N'-word)-lover" is used liberally by some residents of Maycomb as if it's perfectly commonplace, and by others as a weapon.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Mr. Raymond drinks Coke (though others think it's liquor) and gives some to Dill. Jem eats a Tootsie Roll.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Mrs. Dubose is secretly addicted to morphine. A man named Dolphus Raymond is believed to be the town drunk, because he drinks something hidden in a paper bag, but it turns out to be a bottle of Coca-Cola. Bob Ewell is said to spend his relief checks on green whiskey, letting his children go hungry. Scout smells stale whiskey on a man's breath.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Harper Lee 's 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird addresses the terrible impact of racism in America through a little girl's point of view. The story takes place in Depression-era Alabama, in the fictional town of Maycomb, which Lee patterned after her own hometown of Monroeville. The narrator, 6-year-old Scout Finch, and her brother Jem and their friend Dill play children's games, but they also have a clear view of the adults in their world. Their youth and innocence contrasts with the prejudice, cruelty, and poverty they often observe. There's some threatened and real violence in this Pulitzer Prize winner: A man breaks a child's arm; a rabid dog is shot and killed; there is a stabbing death; the children and their father, Atticus Finch, confront a lynch mob; and the court case at the center of the novel involves a Black man who's been accused of raping and beating a white woman. Some of this violence is whiskey-fueled, as well. Profanity includes "damn," "bastard," and "son-of-a-bitch." The "N" word and "('N'-word)-lover" is used liberally by some residents of Maycomb as if it's perfectly commonplace, and by others as a weapon. The children in the novel learn powerful lessons about the impact of poverty and prejudice, and the importance of empathy, and so will those who read this classic. The 1962 film version starring Gregory Peck is one of those rare films that truly does justice to the original book. The audiobook read by Sissy Spacek is also note-perfect.

Where to Read

Community reviews.

• Parents say (27)
• Kids say (168)

Based on 27 parent reviews

So many levels to enjoy this book

What's the story.

Growing up in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Great Depression, Scout Finch -- the narrator of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD -- and her brother, Jem, are being raised by their widowed father, Atticus. Some interesting characters live on their street, both seen and unseen. Dill Harris comes to stay with Scout and Jem's next-door neighbor Rachel Haverford every summer, and the three children develop a close friendship. Elderly Mrs. Dubose shouts insults at the neighbors from her porch. Miss Maudie offers the children friendly advice and baked goods. The young Finches are scared of the Radleys' house, as creepy stories are circulated about Mr. Radley and his sons, especially Arthur, also known as Boo. The children enjoy re-enacting make-believe versions of the stories they've heard about Boo. Scout goes through some growing pains in the story, as her first day of school goes poorly and Jem becomes less willing to play with his little sister. Atticus encourages his daughter to exhibit empathy and patience with others, and he warns both his children that tough times may be coming to their little family; they may hear things that upset them, and he wants them to keep cool. The children learn that Atticus, an attorney, has taken the case of a Black man who has been accused of raping and beating a White woman. The events that unfold surrounding the trial and its aftermath teach the children a lot about their father's inner strength and wisdom, and the effects of racism and poverty on their community.

Is It Any Good?

Told through the eyes of a child, Harper Lee's magnum opus may seem to take a simplistic point of view, but Scout's world is rich and complex. And the author doesn't stint when it comes to the realities Black people face in a racist society -- and the pressures that poverty puts on the Maycomb community. All of that said, Lee's story is about a White family and is told from a White perspective. The reader learns much about the history of the Finch family and very little about Tom Robinson's life other than what's revealed through Scout and her father. This is a beautifully written book, with important lessons to teach, but readers should also be encouraged to read great writing by Black Americans, such as Richard Wright and Toni Morrison .

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the prejudice exhibited by some characters in To Kill a Mockingbird . Could this story take place today? How have American attitudes about race changed since the 1930s? How have they remained the same?

This story is told through the eyes of a little girl. What does the author achieve by making Scout the narrator? How does this affect the way the story unfolds?

What does Boo Radley represent in the story? Why do you think the children enjoy re-creating stories they've heard about him?

Book Details

• Author : Harper Lee
• Genre : Literary Fiction
• Topics : Activism , Brothers and Sisters , Friendship , Great Boy Role Models , Great Girl Role Models
• Book type : Fiction
• Publisher : Time Warner Books
• Publication date : July 11, 1960
• Publisher's recommended age(s) : 11 - 18
• Number of pages : 281
• Available on : Paperback, Nook, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
• Last updated : August 11, 2020

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

The Bluest Eye

The Color Purple

Books about racism and social justice, tv about racism and social justice, related topics.

• Brothers and Sisters
• Great Boy Role Models
• Great Girl Role Models

Want suggestions based on your streaming services? Get personalized recommendations

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

• ADMIN AREA MY BOOKSHELF MY DASHBOARD MY PROFILE SIGN OUT SIGN IN

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

GENERAL FICTION

Share your opinion of this book

More by Harper Lee

BOOK REVIEW

by Harper Lee

More About This Book

SEEN & HEARD

Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

Kirkus Reviews' Best Books Of 2015

Kirkus Prize winner

National Book Award Finalist

A LITTLE LIFE

by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.

Yanagihara ( The People in the Trees , 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.  

Pub Date: March 10, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8

Page Count: 720

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015

More by Hanya Yanagihara

by Hanya Yanagihara

PERSPECTIVES

by Elin Hilderbrand ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2015

Once again, Hilderbrand displays her gift for making us care most about her least likable characters.

Hilderbrand’s latest cautionary tale exposes the toxic—and hilarious—impact of gossip on even the most sophisticated of islands.

Eddie and Grace Pancik are known for their beautiful Nantucket home and grounds, financed with the profits from Eddie’s thriving real estate company (thriving before the crash of 2008, that is). Grace raises pedigreed hens and, with the help of hunky landscape architect Benton Coe, has achieved a lush paradise of fowl-friendly foliage. The Panciks’ teenage girls, Allegra and Hope, suffer invidious comparisons of their looks and sex appeal, although they're identical twins. The Panciks’ friends the Llewellyns (Madeline, a blocked novelist, and her airline-pilot husband, Trevor) invested $50,000, the lion’s share of Madeline’s last advance, in Eddie’s latest development. But Madeline, hard-pressed to come up with catalog copy, much less a new novel, is living in increasingly straightened circumstances, at least by Nantucket standards: she can only afford $2,000 per month on the apartment she rents in desperate hope that “a room of her own” will prime the creative pump. Construction on Eddie’s spec houses has stalled, thanks to the aforementioned crash. Grace, who has been nursing a crush on Benton for some time, gives in and a torrid affair ensues, which she ill-advisedly confides to Madeline after too many glasses of Screaming Eagle. With her agent and publisher dropping dire hints about clawing back her advance and Eddie “temporarily” unable to return the 50K, what’s a writer to do but to appropriate Grace’s adultery as fictional fodder? When Eddie is seen entering her apartment (to ask why she rented from a rival realtor), rumors spread about him and Madeline, and after the rival realtor sneaks a look at Madeline’s rough draft (which New York is hotly anticipating as “the Playboy Channel meets HGTV”), the island threatens to implode with prurient snark. No one is spared, not even Hilderbrand herself, “that other Nantucket novelist,” nor this magazine, “the notoriously cranky Kirkus.”

Pub Date: June 16, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-316-33452-5

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: May 20, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015

More by Elin Hilderbrand

by Elin Hilderbrand

• Discover Books Fiction Thriller & Suspense Mystery & Detective Romance Science Fiction & Fantasy Nonfiction Biography & Memoir Teens & Young Adult Children's
• News & Features Bestsellers Book Lists Profiles Perspectives Awards Seen & Heard Book to Screen Kirkus TV videos In the News
• Kirkus Prize Winners & Finalists About the Kirkus Prize Kirkus Prize Judges
• Magazine Current Issue All Issues Manage My Subscription Subscribe
• Writers’ Center Hire a Professional Book Editor Get Your Book Reviewed Advertise Your Book Launch a Pro Connect Author Page Learn About The Book Industry
• More Kirkus Diversity Collections Kirkus Pro Connect My Account/Login
• About Kirkus History Our Team Contest FAQ Press Center Info For Publishers
• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions
• Reprints, Permission & Excerpting Policy

© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Popular in this Genre

Hey there, book lover.

We’re glad you found a book that interests you!

Please select an existing bookshelf

Create a new bookshelf.

We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!

Please sign up to continue.

It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!

Already have an account? Log in.

Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.

Almost there!

• Industry Professional

Welcome Back!

Sign in using your Kirkus account

Contact us: 1-800-316-9361 or email [email protected].

Don’t fret. We’ll find you.

Magazine Subscribers ( How to Find Your Reader Number )

If You’ve Purchased Author Services

Don’t have an account yet? Sign Up.

• Read TIME’s Original Review of <i>To Kill a Mockingbird</i>

Read TIME’s Original Review of To Kill a Mockingbird

M ore than half a century has passed since TIME reviewed Harper Lee’s first and only novel, To Kill a Mockingbird — but this summer TIME may have a second opportunity to review this celebrated and reclusive author’s work, when the publishing house Harper releases her recently discovered second novel, Go Set a Watchman . The publisher announced on Tuesday that the novel — which was actually written before Mockingbird — will be available on July 14.

TIME’s first review of To Kill a Mockingbird appeared in an Aug. 1, 1960 edition of the magazine, under the headline, “About Life & Little Girls.” While the reviewer doesn’t hold back on the praise, perhaps no one at the time could have anticipated the sensation the book would become.

Here is TIME’s original review, in full:

Clearly, Scout Finch is no ordinary five-year-old girl—and not only because she amuses herself by reading the financial columns of the Mobile Register , but because her nine-year-old brother Jem allows her to tag along when he and Dill Harris try to make Boo Radley come out. Boo is the Radley son who has not shown his face outside the creaky old family house for 30 years and more, probably because he has “shy ways,” but possibly —an explanation the children much prefer—because his relatives have chained him to his bed. Dill has the notion that Boo might be lured out if a trail of lemon drops were made to lead away from his doorstep. Scout and Jem try a midnight invasion instead, and this stirs up so much commotion that Jem loses his pants skittering back under the fence. Scout and her brother live in Maycomb, Alabama, where every family that amounts to anything has a streak—a peculiar streak, or a morbid streak, or one involving a little ladylike tippling at Lydia Pinkham bottles filled with gin. The Finch family streak is a good deal more serious —it is an overpowering disposition toward sanity. This is the flaw that makes Jem interrupt the boasting of a lineage-proud dowager to ask “Is this the Cousin Joshua who was locked up for so long?” And it is what compels Lawyer Atticus Finch, the children’s father, to defend a Negro who is charged with raping a white woman. The rape trial, Jem’s helling, and even Boo Radley are deeply involved in the irregular and very effective education of Scout Finch. By the time she ends her first-person account at the age of nine, she has learned that people must be judged, but only slowly and thoughtfully. Author Lee, 34, an Alabaman, has written her first novel with all of the tactile brilliance and none of the preciosity generally supposed to be standard swamp-warfare issue for Southern writers. The novel is an account of an awakening to good and evil, and a faint catechistic flavor may have been inevitable. But it is faint indeed; Novelist Lee‘s prose has an edge that cuts through cant, and she teaches the reader an astonishing number of useful truths about little girls and about Southern life. (A notable one: “Naming people after Confederate generals makes slow steady drinkers.”) All in all, Scout Finch is fiction’s most appealing child since Carson McCullers’ Frankie got left behind at the wedding.

See the page as it originally appeared, here in the TIME Vault

More Must-Reads From TIME

• The 100 Most Influential People of 2024
• Coco Gauff Is Playing for Herself Now
• Scenes From Pro-Palestinian Encampments Across U.S. Universities
• 6 Compliments That Land Every Time
• If You're Dating Right Now , You're Brave: Column
• The AI That Could Heal a Divided Internet
• Fallout Is a Brilliant Model for the Future of Video Game Adaptations
• Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Contact us at [email protected]

Advertisement

Supported by

Lots of People Love ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ Roxane Gay Isn’t One of Them.

• Share full article

• Apple Books
• Barnes and Noble
• Books-A-Million

When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.

By Roxane Gay

• June 18, 2018

WHY ‘TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD’ MATTERS What Harper Lee’s Book and the Iconic American Film Mean to Us Today By Tom Santopietro 305 pp. St. Martin’s Press. $26.99.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” is a book for which a great many people harbor reverence and nostalgia. I am not one of those people. Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, the narrator of Harper Lee’s coming-of-age novel set in the Depression-era South, tells the story of how her lawyer father, Atticus, defended Tom Robinson, a black man who has been falsely accused of raping a white woman in the fictional Alabama town of Maycomb. By the end of the novel, Robinson has been murdered while trying to escape prison. Scout has lost her innocence; for the first time, she truly understands the racial dynamics of her environment.

I don’t find “To Kill a Mockingbird” to be particularly engaging. There are moments throughout the narrative that are exquisitely drawn, and I appreciate Lee’s dry wit and intelligence. On the novel’s first page, she writes, “Being Southerners, it was a source of shame to some members of the family that we had no recorded ancestors on either side of the Battle of Hastings.” That one line says so much about the Finch family, the South and its ongoing relationship to the past. Scout is a memorable character, but such depth rarely extends to the others. Atticus is written as the platonic ideal of a father and crusader for justice. The black characters — Robinson and the family’s housekeeper, Calpurnia — are mostly there as figures onto which the white people around them can project various thoughts and feelings. They are narrative devices, not fully realized human beings.

The “n word” is used liberally throughout and there are some breathtaking instances of both casual and outright racism. The book is a “product of its time,” sure, so let me just say that said time and the people who lived in it were plain terrible. As for the story, I can take it or leave it. Perhaps I am ambivalent because I am black. I am not the target audience. I don’t need to read about a young white girl understanding the perniciousness of racism to actually understand the perniciousness of racism. I have ample firsthand experience.

Which brings us to “Why ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Matters,” by Tom Santopietro, whose title makes the bold claim that Lee’s classic has endured over the past 58 years because it offers a message that stands the test of time. The book’s continued popularity, and the success of the author’s only other published work, “Go Set a Watchman,” certainly support this claim. Santopietro’s book, however, does not.

The title is misleading. I expected this text to offer a complex and sustained argument about the merits of the novel itself . Instead, much of the book is given over to a biography of Nelle Harper Lee and an extremely detailed history of the making of the 1962 movie. Some light literary analysis is thrown in for good measure. Never does this book take chances or make a persuasive argument for why “To Kill a Mockingbird” matters to anyone but white people who inexplicably still do not understand the ills of racism, and seemingly need this book to show them the light.

Santopietro has certainly done his homework, and he applies the rigor of his knowledge admirably. I came away from the book knowing a great deal more about Harper Lee. He writes lovingly of her hometown, Monroeville, Ala., and her upbringing, convincingly identifying the connective tissue between Lee’s life and the most significant elements of her novel. The context in which she wrote and sold it is just as finely detailed, as is the book’s critical reception upon release. I enjoyed his insights into Lee’s painstaking process of composition and revision — the time and commitment it took. One of the most striking revelations was the ferocity of Lee’s ambition: She was very invested in the success of both her book and the movie.

[ Our review: “Atticus Finch: The Biography” | Our review: “ To Kill a Mockingbird ” | The Life, Death and Career of Harper Lee ]

Most of Santopietro’s work is given over to that movie — so much so that I began to wonder if this book was intended to be a cultural history of the adaptation alone. Santopietro has previously written books about other beloved film adaptations, including “The Sound of Music” and “The Godfather”; here, he details everything from the producers, the screenwriter, the cast and the set decorators to how the film was received by the critics, the public and Lee herself. He is passionate about Gregory Peck as just the right kind of leading man to step into the role of Atticus, and shares a great deal about the process of selecting the child actors to play Scout; her brother, Jem; and their friend Dill. Santopietro goes so far as to elaborate on the lives of everyone involved in the film for years after its release. All of this material is vaguely interesting, but the author fails to explain how it supports his argument that “To Kill a Mockingbird” matters.

On top of that, the book’s structure is strange. There are all kinds of digressions in each chapter, some of which feel more like information dumps than components of a cohesive narrative. Nor is there a clear progression between them: The 11th chapter is about the merits of the movie as an adaptation, and the 13th is about Harper Lee’s private nature, but the 12th asks the question: “Is ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Racist?” (My answer to that question is yes.) These organizational choices — and the one or two jarring Stephen Sondheim quotations he cites — are bewildering. As much as I admire the exhaustive research, not a lot of care seems to have been put into how it is conveyed.

Not until the last few chapters does Santopietro finally try to make a definitive case for the importance of this seminal American novel . He offers statistics about the book’s commercial success: “Translated into 40 languages, the novel sells approximately 750,000 copies every year,” he writes. “In total, some 40 million copies have been sold worldwide since 1960, and at the time of Harper Lee’s death in 2016, her annual royalties remained in excess of three million dollars.” Few other books have sold so robustly for so long. “Mockingbird” is also required reading “in over 70 percent of American high schools.” These numbers are impressive indeed, but ubiquity and quality are not the same thing (and neither one is necessarily the same thing as importance).

Santopietro also notes that we’re still living in a world where ethnic prejudice abounds, not just toward black people but Mexicans, Syrian refugees and others. The author is not ignorant of the racial zeitgeist, but it is odd that he thinks Lee’s novel speaks to it adequately. He boldly claims, “‘Mockingbird’ succeeds in a basic task of literature: the expansion of worldviews by means of exposure to differing communities and cultures.” In that it tells the story of a wrongfully accused incarcerated black man, he is correct, but it is important to question just what kind of exposure the text offers . Given the shallowness of the black characters — how they are vehicles for Scout’s story instead of their own — we as readers should raise the bar higher than mere “exposure.”

Santopietro saves his keenest observation for the final pages of “Why ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Matters,” in which he acknowledges the power of nostalgia: “The continued heartfelt response to ‘Mockingbird’ now seems inextricably tied up in Harper Lee’s ability to underscore a sense of community sorely lacking today.” He goes on to discuss how people spend too much time in isolation with their electronic devices, as neighborhoods, communities and communication disintegrate. He acknowledges how much the culture has changed since the book’s publication in 1960, but laments the proliferation of “dark and damaged characters”on television and in film. What he conveys most powerfully is a yearning for a simpler time — a uniquely white yearning, because it is white people to whom history has been kindest. It is white people who seem to long for the safety of cloistered communities where everyone knows one another, where people know their place and are assured of what their lives may hold. Clearly, Santopietro identifies more with Scout, Jem and Dill than with, say, Boo Radley, the town recluse who probably wouldn’t yearn for that simpler time when the townspeople regarded him with open distance and mistrust.

And then the author illustrates why it is hard to take this book seriously: “The United States found in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ was unquestionably a more racist, oppressive America, deaf to the desires and hopes of women, homosexuals, minorities and nearly anyone who did not fit the prevailing definition of ‘normal.’” This statement is technically true, but it overlooks the serious racial tensions our nation still faces. Santopietro does make brief mentions of President Trump and his lack of leadership during the Charlottesville riots, as well as of the responses (or lack thereof) of black people to “Mockingbird,” but these asides feel tacked on and unexplored. The groundwork for “Why ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Matters” is astute, but the intellectual analyses are not, and the book suffers for it.

Roxane Gay is the author, most recently, of “Hunger,” and the editor of “Not That Bad.”

Explore More in Books

Want to know about the best books to read and the latest news start here..

How did fan culture take over? And why is it so scary? Justin Taylor’s novel “Reboot” examines the convergence of entertainment , online arcana and conspiracy theory.

Jamaica Kincaid and Kara Walker unearth botany’s buried history  to figure out how our gardens grow.

A new photo book reorients dusty notions of a classic American pastime with  a stunning visual celebration of black rodeo.

Two hundred years after his death, this Romantic poet is still worth reading . Here’s what made Lord Byron so great.

Harvard’s recent decision to remove the binding of a notorious volume  in its library has thrown fresh light on a shadowy corner of the rare book world.

Bus stations. Traffic stops. Beaches. There’s no telling where you’ll find the next story based in Accra, Ghana’s capital . Peace Adzo Medie shares some of her favorites.

Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

To Kill a Mockingbird

By harper lee.

'To Kill A Mockingbird' is a 1960 novel by American writer Harper Lee. It is a classic that exposes the folly and injustice of racism in the Deep South through the lens of childhood innocence.

About the Book

Article written by Onyekachi Osuji

B.A. in Public Administration and certified in Creative Writing (Fiction and Non-Fiction)

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee begins with Scout Finch, who reminisces on events that took place in her hometown from when she was six years to nine years old. Scout, with her brother Jem, and their friend Dill undertake many childish ventures in a bid to unravel the phantom of a reclusive neighbor known as Boo Radley. As she grows older, Scout begins to see the sheer injustice of racial discrimination and prejudice in her society when her father Atticus Finch, who is a lawyer, defends a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. Having seen what an unjust society they live in, the children begin to reason that perhaps Boo is right in shutting himself away from the world.

Key Facts about To Kill a Mockingbird

• Title : To Kill a Mockingbird
• Publication Year : 1960
• Number of Pages : 273
• Literary Period : Modern
• Genre : Bildungsroman
• Point of View : First-person Narration
• Setting : 1930s  Alabama, USA
• Climax : Boo Radley fends off Bob Ewell as he attacks Jem and Scout
• Protagonists : Scout; Atticus Finch
• Antagonists : Bob Ewell; the racist people of Maycomb County

Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird is the centerpiece of Harper Lee’s career as a novelist . It was her first novel, published in July 1960 when she was thirty-four years old, and was her only published novel for most of her life until July 2015, when she published a second novel at eighty-nine years old. The second novel was titled Go Set a Watchman and was an earlier draft of To Kill a Mockingbird, with some chapters of the two novels being the same.

Harper Lee was pursuing a Law degree at the University of Alabama but dropped out without obtaining the degree and moved to New York in 1949 to pursue a career as a writer. However, her move to New York was not without challenges, as she had to work to make ends meet and could only write in her spare time. For many years, Lee worked as a ticket reservation agent for an airline, which dampened her productivity as a writer. Then on the Christmas of 1956, Lee’s friends, Micheal Martin Brown, who was a Broadway composer and lyricist, and his wife Joy Brown gave Harper Lee a year’s worth of her wages as a Christmas gift with a note that read: ”You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas”.

Harper Lee promptly focused on her writing after receiving the gift, and by the spring of 1957, she had produced a manuscript that was sent to various publishers.  J.B Lippincott Company bought the manuscript, and a member of the company, Tay Hohoff began to work on the script as editor. In Hoff’s opinion, the script was more of a series of anecdotes than a fully conceived novel, and it took both author and editor about three years of dedicated hard work to restructure the script and produce the finished work that the world now knows as To Kill a Mockingbird . Within those years, Lee had despaired and almost given up on the script. It is said that she had once tossed the script out of the window on a winter night and had called her editor in tears. It is a good thing that Harper Lee did not give up on the script at the end because the novel became a gift to many readers and the world at large.

To Kill a Mockingbird earned its author Harper Lee the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961 and many other awards and recognition, including the Medal of Freedom from two presidents of the United States and appointment to the National Council on the Arts.

Harper Lee included numerous autobiographical details in To Kill a Mockingbird . The narrator Scout Finch had many similarities with Harper Lee as a child, the character Dill was based on Harper’s childhood friend Truman Capote, the morally upright lawyer Atticus Finch was based on Harper Lee’s father Amasa Coleman Lee, and many other characters in the To Kill a Mockingbird were based on real-life family, friends, and neighbors of Harper Lee. The fictional location of Maycomb County in To Kill a Mockingbird is based on Lee’s hometown of Monroeville, Alabama.

Although To Kill a Mockingbird was a bestseller that garnered public attention to the author, Harper Lee was reclusive and did not bask in the public attention. Asides from some interviews in the first few years after the publication, she turned down many requests to grant interviews and make public appearances and lived a relatively private life, shuttling between Manhattan New York, and her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama.

Books Related to To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a novel that showcases many aspects of the culture of the Deep South in the United States—small-town lifestyle where everyone knows everyone else, men with an exaggerated sense of gallantry towards their women, social class distinctions and racial discrimination. Below are some other novels with similar qualities.

• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1936). This historical novel by Margaret Mitchell narrates the struggles of a sheltered white girl Scarlett O’Hara as she witnesses the ordeals of the American Civil War and the new age of the Reconstruction Era in the southern state of Georgia, USA. It is similar to To Kill a Mockingbird in being a classic storytelling from a Southerner that depicts the class, gender, and racial discrimination in the South.
• Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote (1948). This Gothic novel was written by Truman Capote, who was Harper Lee’s close childhood friend . The protagonist of the novel is a 13-year-old boy named Joel Harrison Knox, whose life takes a new turn after the death of his mother. Joel moves to a new home rife with decay and strange appearances but finds friendship with a tomboy around his age called Idabel.

Other Voices, Other Rooms, and To Kill a Mockingbird both have children as major characters and are similar in addressing themes of childhood, coming of age, and parental dynamics, along with issues of gender and race. Both authors also modeled a character after each other in the two respective novels— Truman Capote modeled the character Idabel in Other Voices, Other Rooms after memories of Harper Lee as a child, and Harper Lee modeled the character Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird after Truman Capote as a child.

• Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee (2015). This is Harper Lee’s only published novel besides To Kill a Mockingbird. Go Set a Watchman is an earlier draft of To Kill a Mockingbird submitted to publishers in 1957 but was published fifty-eight years later in 2015. Go Set A Watchman follows the later lives of characters in To Kill a Mockingbird as the South continues to face tensions around the issue of race and discrimination. Go Set a Watchman places controversies around the morally upright Atticus Finch of To Kill a Mockingbird . Scout Finch as a single lady in her twenties becomes disillusioned with her idolization of her father as she senses that like many other Southern men, her father might also have racial prejudice.

Lasting Impact of To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird caused a sensation from the moment it was published in July 1960. It quickly became a bestseller and was translated to ten languages just within the first year of its publication. And in 1961, it won Harper Lee the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

To Kill a Mockingbird was adapted into a film of the same title in 1962. The film adaptation, directed by Robert Mulligan with a screenplay by Horton Foote, also got a successful reception, grossing over 20 million US dollars from a 2 million dollar budget and getting numerous Academy awards and nominations. The film got eight Oscar nominations and won three out of them, including Best Actor for Gregory Peck, who played the character Atticus Finch.

Since 1990, a play based on the novel has been performed annually in Harper Lee’s hometown of Monroeville, Alabama.

In a 1999 poll by the Library Journal, To Kill a Mockingbird was voted the Best Novel of the Century.

In 2006, it ranked ahead of the Bible in Britain in a poll of ”books an adult must read before they die”.

In 2008, the novel emerged in a US survey as the most widely read novel by students in grades 9-12 in the United States.

The novel has currently sold over 30 million copies in hardcover and paperback and has been translated to over 40 languages. Many consider To Kill a Mockingbird as the Great American Novel, and it continues to be a sensation and a topic of both academic and socio-political conversations in the US and across the globe.

To Kill a Mockingbird Review ⭐

An excellent novel that comes highly recommended for good reasons. Everyone should read ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’

To Kill a Mockingbird Character List 📖

Meet the characters in ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’. From Scout the adorable tomboy, to the mysterious Boo Radley and the noble Atticus Finch.

To Kill a Mockingbird Quotes 💬

Here are some quotes worth noting in ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee that covers religion, empathy, race, and more.

To Kill a Mockingbird Themes and Analysis 📖

The theme of race and injustice is a powerful element of ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee that makes the novel a great sensation.

To Kill a Mockingbird Historical Context 📖

‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee was apt in timing as it addressed the powerful issue of race at a time in history when serious conversations and actions about race were taking place across the world.

To Kill a Mockingbird Summary 📖

‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ is a coming of age story where a child discovers that white and black belong to two unfairly different worlds in her society.

Join Our Free Community

Engage in Literary Forums

Create and Join Groups

Create your own profile

See fewer ads

Save and bookmark articles

Discover literature and connect with others just like yourself!

Start the Conversation. Join the Chat.

There was a problem reporting this post.

Block Member?

Please confirm you want to block this member.

You will no longer be able to:

• See blocked member's posts
• Mention this member in posts
• Invite this member to groups

Please allow a few minutes for this process to complete.

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee – review

‘If you are a human being with emotions, this book will impact you, regardless of age, gender or background.’

If you have never read To Kill A Mockingbird, I would advise you to stop reading this review immediately, and go and buy yourself a copy. Not only is it a beautifully crafted masterpiece, it’s a timeless story where every word makes you feel something. It’s so different a book to describe, because it’s such a classic, but it’s a classic for a reason, in that the story is IMPORTANT. It’s important for every single person to read this book at least once in their lives, because what it teaches cannot be summed up in any other way.

I’m ashamed of myself as to how long I put off reading To Kill A Mockingbird: I always assumed it’d be my GCSE English novel, and thought I’d have to analyse it anyway, so why bother reading it for pleasure when it would be ruined? When I found out that A) Michael Gove was scrapping it and B) We were doing Of Mice and Men, I decided it was time to pick up a copy, nicely timed with the prequel coming out. And the only thing that crossed my mind after my fingers turned the final page, were confused and angry thoughts about why this book hadn’t come in to my life sooner.

For any that don’t know what the book is about, I’m going to describe it briefly, because the beauty of the book is that the reader follows the story with the characters. It’s set in the 1930s, when America was hit by the Great Depression, and filled with prejudice. It’s told in the voice of Scout. Being in the voice of a young girl made a story about such brutal prejudice and discrimination different: it was youthful, it was playful, it was innocent, and to see such innocence corrupted by a genuine sense of reality throughout the novel was one of the most worthwhile parts of the book. Scout has an older brother, Jem, and they live with their father, Atticus: Atticus is a lawyer, and possibly one of my favourite characters of all time. I feel like often writers feel their characters need a defining trait, a fatal flaw: but Atticus was just genuinely a good person. He wasn’t a hero, he wasn’t this macho and masculine protagonist that some books seem to need. He was moral, he was good, he was inspirational, just because he was such a good person. His wisdom gave a sense of continuity throughout the novel, and seeing how his words impacted his children, and how subtly in awe they were of his presence was done with a skill I rarely see in fiction. Atticus Finch is wonderful. He viewed the world in a way that didn’t judge people, and this translated perfectly through the pages of the book.

If you are a human being with emotions, this book will impact you, regardless of age, gender or background. This book makes you FEEL: that’s the best way to describe it. Ultimately, there’s a reason why people still read this book. It’s a reason you won’t understand until you pick up the book, and feel the words speak to you.

I found this review almost impossible to write. I don’t want to tell you the plot, to list every character, every theme tackled in it: dive straight in, and discover it for yourself.

I always made a fuss about having to analyse certain books at GCSE, but I take it all back. Reading To Kill A Mockingbird is a necessity: it will change your life, it will change the way you view the world around you, it will inspire you, it will make you rethink how you treat people, how you view the world. It sounds an exaggeration but the sheer unique quality of the book makes it like nothing I’ve ever read or experienced. It tackles right and wrong in a way that isn’t patronising or dull, but in a way that is flawlessly written.

• Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop

Want to tell the world about a book you’ve read? Join the site and send us your review!

• Children's books
• Children and teenagers
• Historical fiction (children and teens)
• Friendship books for children and teens
• children's user reviews

Most viewed

Notice: All forms on this website are temporarily down for maintenance. You will not be able to complete a form to request information or a resource. We apologize for any inconvenience and will reactivate the forms as soon as possible.

Book Review

To kill a mockingbird.

Readability Age Range

• Harper Perennial Modern Classics
• To Kill a Mockingbirdwon a Pulitzer Prize. Librarians across America agree with the New York Public Library in their selection of this book as one of the best of the 20th century.

Year Published

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee has been reviewed by Focus on the Family’s marriage and parenting magazine .

Plot Summary

In their small Southern town, Scout and Jem Finch start out as innocent youngsters who play, attend school and attempt to communicate with their reclusive neighbor, Boo Radley. Their lawyer father, Atticus, always proffers wise insights for living. For example, he tells them it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird, since mockingbirds do nothing harmful but simply sing. Though a peace lover and gentleman, Atticus finds himself in the midst of fierce social turmoil as he defends a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. The entire town becomes swept up in the trial. Scout and Jem learn hard lessons about social inequity, personal restraint and compassion. When Boo Radley ultimately saves the children’s lives, it solidifies their resolve to care for the “mockingbirds” in their society.

Christian Beliefs

Scout asserts that church is their town’s “principle recreation”; she says she spent long hours in church copying chapters from the Bible, which is part of how she learned to read and write. The Finch family’s most noteworthy ancestor, Simon Finch, was a stingy and pious Methodist. Scout and a neighbor discuss the rift between the city’s “foot-washing Baptists” and non-foot washers. (The foot washers criticize a neighbor for having beautiful flowers, because they believe anything that brings pleasure is a sin.) When the children attend church with the black housekeeper, Calpurnia, they witness a pastor who brazenly reports some congregants’ sins from the pulpit — but also refuses to let anyone leave the church until they’ve given enough money to help a family in trouble.

Other Belief Systems

Prejudice — racial (the term n-gger is used repeatedly) and otherwise — plays a key role in the story. Jem tells Scout and Dill about “hot steams,” dead people who can’t get into heaven so they walk around sucking out others’ breath. He also contends that if a whole stadium full of people would concentrate on the same thing at once, the object would burst into flame.

Authority Roles

Atticus Finch teaches his children tough life lessons by talking to them like grown-ups and by allowing them to witness some difficult realities. His actions provide them with an example of how to show compassion to others, and he refuses to force his children to adhere to the social expectations and class distinctions of their day. Calpurnia, a stern but loving black woman, respects her neighbors and friends by not flaunting her ability to read and speak well.

Aunt Alexandra comes to live with the family, intending to help Atticus instill some good upbringing into the children; Atticus makes it clear he won’t allow his children to absorb her condescending opinions of others and her rigid view of how society should operate.

Profanity & Violence

Jacka–, son-of-a-b–ch, d–n, h—, b–tard and godd–n whore all appear.

Sexual Content

A black man stands trial for raping a white woman; fairly tame accounts of the event are provided in the courtroom scenes. Dill gives Scout quick kisses.

Discussion Topics

Get free discussion questions for this book and others, at FocusOnTheFamily.com/discuss-books .

Additional Comments

Producers often use a book as a springboard for a movie idea or to earn a specific rating. Because of this, a movie may differ from the novel. To better understand how this book and movie differ, compare the book review with Plugged In’s movie review.

You can request a review of a title you can’t find at [email protected] .

Book reviews cover the content, themes and worldviews of fiction books, not their literary merit, and equip parents to decide whether a book is appropriate for their children. The inclusion of a book’s review does not constitute an endorsement by Focus on the Family.

Latest Book Reviews

The Minor Miracle: The Amazing Adventures of Noah Minor

The Eyes and the Impossible

Castle Reef 2: Bloodlines

Compass and Blade

Nothing Else But Miracles

Weekly reviews straight to your inbox.

• Craft and Criticism
• Fiction and Poetry
• News and Culture
• Lit Hub Radio
• Reading Lists

• Literary Criticism
• Craft and Advice
• In Conversation
• On Translation
• Short Story
• From the Novel
• Bookstores and Libraries
• Film and TV
• Art and Photography
• Freeman’s
• The Virtual Book Channel
• Behind the Mic
• Beyond the Page
• The Cosmic Library
• The Critic and Her Publics
• Emergence Magazine
• Fiction/Non/Fiction
• First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing
• Future Fables
• The History of Literature
• I’m a Writer But
• Just the Right Book
• Lit Century
• The Literary Life with Mitchell Kaplan
• New Books Network
• Tor Presents: Voyage Into Genre
• Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast
• Write-minded
• The Best of the Decade
• Best Reviewed Books
• BookMarks Daily Giveaway
• The Daily Thrill
• CrimeReads Daily Giveaway

News, Notes, Talk

Read the very first reviews of To Kill a Mockingbird .

Sixty-three years ago today, a young Alabama writer by the name of Nelle Harper Lee published her debut novel: a Southern Gothic-adjacent bildungsroman about racial injustice and familial love in the American South.

In the months leading up to publication, Lee’s editors at Lippincott were keen to manage expectations, telling the author that her novel would probably sell only a few thousand copies.

Things, as we now know, played out a little differently.

Indisputably one of the best-loved American stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an Oscar-winning film starring Gregory Peck, and consistently been voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. It has also become one of the country’s most frequently challenged and banned books .

To mark this publication anniversary, here’s a look back at the very first reviews of To Kill a Mockingbird .

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.

“In her first novel, Harper Lee writes with gentle affection, rich humor, and deep understanding of small-town family life in Alabama … Macomb has its share of eccentrics and evil-doers but Miss Lee has not tried to satisfy the current lust for morbid, grotesque tales of Southern depravity … The dialogue of Miss Lee’s refreshingly varied characters is a constant delight in its authenticity and swift revelation of personality. The events connecting the Finches with the Ewell-Robinson lawsuit develop quietly and logically, unifying the plot and dramatizing the author’s level-headed plea for interracial understanding … it is no disparagement of Miss Lee’s winning book to say that it could be the basis of an excellent film.”

–The New York Times Book Review , July 10, 1960

“All the magic and truth that might seem deceptive or exaggerated in a factual account of a small town unfold beautifully in a new first novel called To Kill a Mockingbird . At a time when so many machine-tooled novels are simply documentaries disguised behind a few fictional changes, it is pleasing to recommend a book that shows what a novelist can accomplish with quite familiar situations … To Kill A Mockingbird opens the chrysalis of childhood quietly and dramatically … Miss Lee’s characters are people to cherish in this winning first novel by a fresh writer with something significant to say, south and north.”

– The New York Times , July 13, 1960

“Clearly, Scout Finch is no ordinary five-year-old girl—and not only because she amuses herself by reading the financial columns of the Mobile Register , but because her nine-year-old brother Jem allows her to tag along when he and Dill Harris try to make Boo Radley come out.

Boo is the Radley son who has not shown his face outside the creaky old family house for 30 years and more, probably because he has ‘shy ways,’ but possibly—an explanation the children much prefer—because his relatives have chained him to his bed. Dill has the notion that Boo might be lured out if a trail of lemon drops were made to lead away from his doorstep. Scout and Jem try a midnight invasion instead, and this stirs up so much commotion that Jem loses his pants skittering back under the fence.

Scout and her brother live in Maycomb, Alabama, where every family that amounts to anything has a streak—a peculiar streak, or a morbid streak, or one involving a little ladylike tippling at Lydia Pinkham bottles filled with gin. The Finch family streak is a good deal more serious—it is an overpowering disposition toward sanity. This is the flaw that makes Jem interrupt the boasting of a lineage-proud dowager to ask ‘Is this the Cousin Joshua who was locked up for so long?’ And it is what compels Lawyer Atticus Finch, the children’s father, to defend a Negro who is charged with raping a white woman. The rape trial, Jem’s helling, and even Boo Radley are deeply involved in the irregular and very effective education of Scout Finch. By the time she ends her first-person account at the age of nine, she has learned that people must be judged, but only slowly and thoughtfully.

Author Lee, 34, an Alabaman, has written her first novel with all of the tactile brilliance and none of the preciosity generally supposed to be standard swamp-warfare issue for Southern writers. The novel is an account of an awakening to good and evil, and a faint catechistic flavor may have been inevitable. But it is faint indeed; novelist Lee’s prose has an edge that cuts through cant, and she teaches the reader an astonishing number of useful truths about little girls and about Southern life. (A notable one: ‘Naming people after Confederate generals makes slow steady drinkers.’) All in all, Scout Finch is fiction’s most appealing child since Carson McCullers’ Frankie got left behind at the wedding.”

– TIME , August 1, 1960

“Almost all the elements of the ‘southern’ novel are to be found somewhere or other in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, but they seem to wear a look of innocence, an aura of freshness, as if we were encountering them for the very first time … there are memorable moments in this story, some vivid and candid portraits in black and white, a gentle, persuasive humor, and a glowing goodness in the central figures. There is a timelessness about them and Miss Lee’s novel leaves one feeling that they will prevail in the difficult and painful adjustments the South must inevitably make. At least one has hope, and is grateful for it.”

–The Los Angeles Times , August 7, 1960

“Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird is sugar-water served with humor … It is frankly and completely impossible, being told in the first person by a six-year-old girl with the prose style of a well-educated adult. Miss Lee has, to be sure, made an attempt to confine the information in the text to what Scout would actually know, but it is no more than a casual gesture toward plausibility … A variety of adults, mostly eccentric in Scout’s judgment, and a continual bubble of incident make To Kill A Mockingbird pleasant, undemanding reading.”

–The Atlantic , August, 1960

“…a wonderfully absorbing story … [it] will come under some fire in the Deep South … The fact is simply that she has written a wonderfully absorbing story, unencumbered by either of the gimmicks—the bedroom or bestiality—which are supposed to be the only things that sell fiction today.”

–The Mobile Press-Register , 1960

• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
• Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
• Click to print (Opens in new window)

to the Lithub Daily

April 26, 2024.

• Authors recall the dawn of Gmail
• Understanding Shakespeare through fan fiction
• Colin Dickey considers Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’ legacy

Lit hub Radio

• RSS - Posts

Literary Hub

Created by Grove Atlantic and Electric Literature

Sign Up For Our Newsletters

How to Pitch Lit Hub

Advertisers: Contact Us

Privacy Policy

Support Lit Hub - Become A Member

Become a Lit Hub Supporting Member : Because Books Matter

For the past decade, Literary Hub has brought you the best of the book world for free—no paywall. But our future relies on you. In return for a donation, you’ll get an ad-free reading experience , exclusive editors’ picks, book giveaways, and our coveted Joan Didion Lit Hub tote bag . Most importantly, you’ll keep independent book coverage alive and thriving on the internet.

Become a member for as low as $5/month

Book Review: To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

To Kill A Mockingbird is up there with some of the all-time classic books recommended to anybody who wants to consider themself “well-read”. It’s a book that takes you through all the range of emotions, teaching you morality and pure kindness along the way.

Originally published in 1960, To Kill A Mockingbird was Harper Lee’s first of two books she ever wrote. It is set in Southern America, in Alabama and follows the lives of Jean Louise, the daughter of Atticus Finch and her family and friends. It discusses and covers prejudice in a very gritty and down-to-earth manner and takes you through a story that will see you experience all the emotions.

To Kill A Mockingbird follows the story of Jean Louise, a young girl who lives in sleepy Maycomb, Alabama from 1933-1935 during The Great Depression. We follow Jean Louise’s experiences as she learns about the world. She learns what’s expected of women, how certain families come from “good blood” and “bad blood”, how poverty or wealth can affect a family’s standing. She learns most importantly about morality, mostly via guidance from her father Atticus Finch, the town’s lawyer. Most of the story is set around Atticus Finch’s defence of a black man within the town who has been accused of raping one of the young women. From this one trial, Jean Louise learns so much about people’s beliefs at the time – a time when black people were wrongly seen as far inferior to white people and were supposed to work for white people.

I’ll be honest, I absolutely loved every single word written in this book. Harper Lee writes from the point of a child in such a pure and believable way. Jean Louise questions everything – she hasn’t been brought up to hate black people – their housemaid is black and she is one of the family, she’s loved equally to everyone as that’s how she’s been brought up. So when people show displeasure and prejudice, Jean Louise asks her father, she asks her older brother Jim and she questions everyone as she’s not sure why they do. With these questions, Atticus consistently gives her a balanced and morally right view of the situation. He tells her why, he tells her his views and he explains that she should develop her own views based on how people treat her, not the colour of their skin, their gender or anything otherwise.

It’s a story that will leave your heart feeling whole and pure. Atticus Finch is the perfect father figure and Jean Louise is the perfect blank canvas with Harper Lee uses to ask the real questions that would have been asked by so many young in the 1930s and prior. I could go on for many more paragraphs about how this book can teach children and those with prejudice views a smarter, more simple way to view everyone but I’ll stop here before this begins to become an ethics essay.

Characters – 5/5 

Jean Louise is brilliant – she’s a young feisty girl who defies everything that society expects her to be. During the period, women were expected to behave like “women”. This meant wearing dresses, understanding your role as a man’s aid, speaking properly, curtsying to everybody etc. However, as I mentioned above, Jean Louise has been brought up by a man that’s never taught her what she should or shouldn’t be and so having an older brother has left her as a bit of a tom-boy. She loves to get muddy, she gets into fist-fights at school and she’s not afraid to answer back if she genuinely doesn’t believe what’s being asked of her is what she should do. She’s strong, incredibly intelligent and utterly lovable throughout – despite her quite obvious flaws as a child growing up in a fairly backwards society.

Atticus Finch is written as a true hero. He’s a well-educated, well-read white man who always says and does the right thing. He always knows the best way to phrase tricky topics and he never fights or argues, even in situations where he has every right to do so. There’s an element to Atticus of wanting so hard for his children to be genuinely good people that the choices he makes and things he says are possibly not what he’d always say or do out of the earshot of the children.

The supporting characters throughout the novel are all fantastic too. You have those who are racist, those who are sexist, those who come from more affluent backgrounds and those who come from poorer backgrounds. These all meld into creating such a broad stroke of different characters.

To Kill A Mockingbird summary – 5/5

I listened to To Kill a Mockingbird via audiobook and I read the kindle version too and whichever I was choosing to do, I found myself absolutely obsessed and invested by the story and the characters. When I pick up a classic, I always go into it with hesitancy as I worry I won’t grasp why  it’s received the acclaim it has and to have endured for such a long time. But I can 100% see why To Kill A Mockingbird is considered one of the greatest novels ever written. It gives you an utterly pure look into prejudice and the beginnings of the questions of whether it’s right the way people of colour were treated back then and whilst doing so writes in some utterly loveable characters, a gripping story and the feeling of completion when finished.

If you’ve not read To Kill A Mockingbird , I would highly recommend it to absolutely everyone. Usually, I pick a genre so I can link it to those genre reviews on my blog but I have to recommend this book to everybody. It’s fantastic and possibly up there with one of my favourite novels I’ve ever read.

• Buy To Kill A Mockingbird on Kindle from Amazon.
• Buy To Kill A Mockingbird in paperback from Amazon.

Book Review: To Kill a Mockingbird

The novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee may strike your perception as a seemingly uninteresting story. The book tells the tale of two young children in a sleepy Alabama town, and at face-value, the plot does not garner much intrigue. However, I was in the same situation when I was required to read this book in the spring of my freshman year at high school. Indeed, while at first the story seemed boring, as I continued to carry on with reading, every turn of the page immersed me ever further into Lee’s timeless story.

As a reader, you share the emotions felt by Jem and Scout, two young siblings, as they learn the nuances of life in the prejudiced American South during the early 1900s. Not only was their community weakened by the economic collapse of the Great Depression, but also sickened by the bitter contempt felt among whites and blacks.

In the beginning of the novel, Jean Louise “Scout” Finch and her brother Jem innocently play games with their friend “Dill” and enjoy life in Maycomb with their father, Atticus. During this time, they have little to no apprehension of the racial tension hanging in their society, but when their father, Atticus Finch, who works as lawyer, openly chooses to defend an African American in court, trouble arises.

Jem and Scout undergo a number of personal developments during the course of the novel. While at first, they carry with them a genuine and child-like innocence, the court trial their father has taken on exposes them to the racist indignity felt by their fellow community members. Jem and Scout struggle to balance their conflict between the social norms of Maycomb and the morals their father has instilled in them. With the trial’s end, Jem and Scout are lead to discover the imperfections of their society, and the ways with which they are forced to deal with them. As the reader follows along, they not only watch Jem and Scout change, but they too themselves are shaped through Lee’s captivating story.

Overall, I enjoyed most aspects of the book. Although some scenes I felt were a bit plain and unprogressive, these minor flaws were overshadowed by the powerful themes Lee expresses through the story. If you haven’t already read To Kill a Mockingbird, I would certainly give the novel a try. If not for the genuine enjoyment of reading the story, try this novel to feel the powerful emotions stirred from Lee’s literary masterpiece.

Reviewer Grade: 10

• Literature & Fiction
• Genre Fiction

Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime Try Prime and start saving today with fast, free delivery

Amazon Prime includes:

Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.

• Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
• Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
• Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
• A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
• Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
• Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access

Important:  Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.

Buy new: $16.00 $16.00 FREE delivery Thursday, May 2 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35 Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com

Return this item for free.

Free returns are available for the shipping address you chose. You can return the item for any reason in new and unused condition: no shipping charges

• Go to your orders and start the return
• Select the return method

Buy used: $5.16

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

To Kill a Mockingbird Hardcover – Deckle Edge, March 3, 2015

Purchase options and add-ons.

Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American Read

Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South—and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred

One of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.

• Part of series To Kill a Mockingbird
• Print length 336 pages
• Language English
• Lexile measure 790L
• Dimensions 5.38 x 0.99 x 8 inches
• Publisher Harper
• Publication date March 3, 2015
• ISBN-10 0062420704
• ISBN-13 978-0062420701
• See all details

Frequently bought together

More items to explore

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

From the back cover.

"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. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence, and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina and quiet heroism of one man's struggle for justice—but the weight of history will only tolerate so much.

One of the best-loved classics of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has earned many distinctions since its original publication in 1960.

It has won the Pulitzer Prize, been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, and been made into an enormously popular movie. It was also named the best novel of the twentieth century by librarians across the country ( Library Journal ).

About the Author

Harper Lee was born in 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama. She is the author of the acclaimed To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman , which became a phenomenal #1 New York Times bestseller when it was published in July 2015. Ms. Lee received the Pulitzer Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and numerous other literary awards and honors. She died on February 19, 2016.

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper; Reprint edition (March 3, 2015)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0062420704
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0062420701
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 14+ years, from customers
• Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 790L
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.8 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.38 x 0.99 x 8 inches
• #35 in Teen & Young Adult Classic Literature
• #317 in Classic Literature & Fiction
• #982 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Videos for this product

Click to play video

Books We Love - Crime Fiction

Kindle Most Wanted

About the author

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.

Customer reviews

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

Reviews with images

• Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

Top reviews from other countries

• Amazon Newsletter
• About Amazon
• Accessibility
• Sustainability
• Press Center
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell on Amazon
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Supply to Amazon
• Protect & Build Your Brand
• Become an Affiliate
• Become a Delivery Driver
• Start a Package Delivery Business
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Become an Amazon Hub Partner
• › See More Ways to Make Money
• Amazon Visa
• Amazon Store Card
• Amazon Secured Card
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Credit Card Marketplace
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Amazon Prime
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices
• Recalls and Product Safety Alerts
• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

the starving artist

I'm determined. are you, book review: to kill a mockingbird.

I read this book, right now, for all the obvious reasons. It is a classic and won the Pulitzer Prize, but I could barely remember anything about my high school reading of it. (It’s also very likely that I didn’t even finish it). Harper Lee published her new book–the first in over 50 years–which is a sort of sequel to  To Kill and Mockingbird a couple weeks back, and I would like to read it. I have a Kindle copy that I will be starting tomorrow on an all-day car trip. I have written more than one blog about the Harper Lee news and new book .

Now, I really didn’t have much in the way of expectation when I began reading this book. From what feelings I recall from high school, it just “wasn’t my type.” Plus, courtroom drama? (I’ll get to that more in a sec.) Then again, everyone seems to love this book, as evidenced by the literary orgy that happened a few years ago at the 50th anniversary of its publication. It truly is a classic.

I’m going to start with the little that I have to say negative about this book, and get it over with. It’s a little preachy. Sure, we all nod our heads as Atticus spouts something true and honest, but sometimes I felt the preachiness. If you don’t know what I mean, see the quotes below. We don’t just see the Finches being model citizens and moral examples, we hear/read the father (and other characters, like Miss Maudie and Reverend Sykes) telling Scout and Jem, and therefore us, the things they (and we) need to know to grow up straight. When Harper Lee said, “I already said everything I needed to say,” I long questioned how talent like hers could dry up so quickly (both in application and in will). I now recognize this statement as more of a moral one, and while what she has said is incredibly important, I would have liked more doing, less saying. (Then again, I would have missed Atticus’ one-liners and the gentler side of the adult world.)

I also found the plot to be a little slow? Or maybe just disjointed. I was like all interested in Boo Radley, and then I suddenly realized I was knee-deep in Tom Robinson with no Boo to be seen for like 100 pages. The story often follows a summer-to-summer routine, then on page 340, we’re all of a sudden in a Halloween story. While the whole thing definitely comes full circle and ties up in its way, I was distracted by not knowing what I was looking for next or by feeling like I was being pulled in two or three different directions. Perhaps if they had been weaved together a little more? By the end, I was like, “Mrs. Dubose? Was that a short story I read some time?”

But that’s all I can possibly complain about with this book.

It is written  so cleanly, and that is one of the highest compliments I can pay to a piece of writing. I’m not sure there is much I can even expound on here. The writing is incredibly clea n. It seldom distracts or loses you. And even though Lee is writing from a different time and place and a very difference perspective, you never lose pace with her. She’s not being flowery, but she is both lyrical and beautiful in her expression while also being sparse.

She is also a master at portraying a time and a place. It happens to be a time and place that she experienced, so I have no idea how she would write portraying more fantastical things, but she certainly yanks the reader into the world of Macomb County, Alabama in the 1930s and plops you into the body and school desk of Jean Louise. The spell is complete, and you never leave the time or place, which you see so clearly that you also taste it, feel it, and hear it.

And speaking of the fine touch and the enchantment of great writing, the characters are extremely well-drawn. With only a few gestures and words, the reader gets a very full impression of one of the about twenty characters in the book. While Lee’s characters are a little too good-or-bad for me, I really felt I was walking among complex people, both peculiar and universal at the same time (which we all are) and both in the world of a child and the adult world. (As a side note: I have heard it said that authors should never write in dialect. However, there are many exceptions to this rule, and Mockingbird is easily one of them. The dialect only acts to enhance the story, not distract.) The interaction between children and adults is so correct and subtle, I have hardly ever seen it written so well.

I really thought I would be bored with the court scenes, and dreaded coming up on them. However–and I’m not at all sure how she did it–I was not bored in the least. Even when reading long speeches, I felt riveted and wanted to keep reading. In fact, the only thing that bored me from time to time was the town and county history. I’m not saying she should have cut it, exactly, but it did make me zone out, or set the book down and finally nod off for the night.

Let’s be honest: what Lee has said in  To Kill a Mockingbird is very important. And not just in a morally-forward-thinking (for the time) way (or in just racial relations, but also in coming-of-age and womanhood among other things), but as an historical document. Historical?, you ask. Yes. I believe in the truth and honesty of some fiction, and this book captures the truth and honesty of a particular history better than any textbook. And I also believe that we don’t glaze over or sweep away history, but learn from it through a humility to its authenticity (as best as we can, anyhow). I’m sure that this book can’t be read by some people without a certain amount of pain. I’m just saying that if you want to learn from the American South in the early twentieth century (and apply it to any given time or situation), this is a great place from which to move forward.

_______________

There is, of course, a very famous and highly lauded film from 1963, starring Gregory Peck. Currently, it’s available for $3 as a rental from iTunes, so I intend to check it out but I want to read Go Set a Watchman first. I just would prefer not to put any actor’s faces in my head before I continue with the Scout and Atticus I have created in my imagination. I will review it later.

“That boy’s yo’ comp’ny and if he wants to eat up the table cloth you let him, you hear?” (p32).

“…anybody sets foot in this house’s yo’ comp’ny, and don’t you let me catch you remarkin’ on their ways like you was so high and mighty!” (p33).

“Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I’d have the facts” (p79).

“There are no clearly defined seasons in South Alabama; summer drifts into autumn, and autumn is sometimes never followed by winter, but turns into days-old spring that melts into summer again” (p79).

“”s what everybody at school says.’ / ‘From now on it’ll be everybody less one–‘” (p99).

“Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win” (p101).

“Had I ever harbored the mystical notions about mountains that seem to obsess lawyers and judges, Aunt Alexandra would have been analogous to Mount Everest: through-out my early life, she was cold and there” (p103).

“She hurt my feelings and set my teeth permanently on edge, but when I asked Atticus about it, he said there were already enough sunbeams in the family and to go about my business, he didn’t mind me much the way I was” (p109).

“When stalking one’s prey, it is best to take one’s time. Say nothing, and as sure as eggs he will become curious and emerge” (p110).

“…baby, it’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn’t hurt you” (p145).

“I wanted you to 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” (p149).

“…both kept in an unhealthy state of tidiness” (p169).

“…one must lie under certain circumstances and at all times when one can’t do anything about them” (p171).

“Aunty had a way of declaring What Is Best For The Family, and I suppose her coming to live with us was in that category” (p171).

“Somewhere, I had received the impression that Fine Folks were people who did the best they could with the sense they had, but Aunt Alexandra was of the opinion, obliquely expressed, that the longer a family had been squatting on one patch of land the finer it was” (p173).

“Through my tears I saw Jem standing in a similar pool of isolation, his head cocked to one side” (p178).

“He could add and subtract faster than lightning, but he preferred his own twilight world, a world where babies slept, waking to be gathered like morning lilies” (p12).

“He says as far as he can trace back the Finches we ain’t, but for all he knows we mighta come straight out of Ethiopia durin’ the Old Testament” (p216).

“All the little man on the witness stand had that made him any better than his nearest neighbor was, that if scrubbed with lye soap in very hot water, his skin was white” (p229).

“You know the truth, and the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not to be trusted around women–black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men” (p273).

“We know that all men are not created equal in the sense some people wold have us believe… and in our courts all men are created equal” (p274).

“I don’t know, but they did it. They’ve done it before and they did it tonight and they’ll do it again and when they do it–seems that only children weep” (p285).

“‘Tellin’ the truth’s not cynical, is it?’ / ‘The way you tell it, it is'” (p287).

“…can’t any Christian judges an’ lawyers make up for heathen juries” (p289).

“He told me havin’ a gun around’s an invitation to somebody to shoot you” (p292).

“You couldn’t, but they could and did …. The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box” (p295).

“Atticus told me one time that most of this Old Family stuff’s a foolishness because everybody’s family’s just as old as everybody else’s” (p303).

“Naw, Jem, I think there’s just one kind of folk. Folks” (p304).

“There was no doubt about it, I must soon enter this world, where on its surface fragrant ladies rocked slowly, fanned gently, and drank cool water. But I was more at home in my father’s world” (p313).

“People up there set ’em free, but you don’t see ’em settin’ at the table with ’em” (p313).

“…the handful of people with enough humility to think, when they look at a Negro, there but for the Lord’s kindness am I” (p316).

“Jem, how can you hate Hitler so bad an’ then turn around and be ugly about folks right at home–” (p331).

“Atticus said that Jem was trying hard to forget something, but what he was really doing was storing it away for awhile, until enough time passed” (p331).

Share this:

Related posts.

A Meandering History of the Starving Artist

My Meandering History as a Starving Artist

Artsy Phartsy

Holiday: What to Do Tonight

Top Ten: Top Twelve, Plus Some

Holiday: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Tripping Off the Block

The Life of a Writer in a Few Hundred Bulletted Words

Mothering the Novel

Month Recap: Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful

Birthing the Novel

Holiday: All You Need Is Love

The Accidental Entrepreneur

Sound Advice

Oh, What a Day

Book Review: Harmonies of the World

Month Recap: Stuck On You

Book Review: The Purpose Driven Life

Leave a comment Cancel reply

• Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
• Subscribe Subscribed
• Copy shortlink
• Report this content
• View post in Reader
• Manage subscriptions
• Collapse this bar

• Biggest New Books
• Non-Fiction
• All Categories
• First Readers Club Daily Giveaway
• How It Works

The First Reviews of To Kill a Mockingbird

In honor of harper lee's birthday.

• Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)

Nelle Harper Lee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of To Kill a Mockingbird , who died in 2016, was born in Monroeville, Alabama ninety-four years ago today. To mark this auspicious anniversary, we’re going back almost six decades to bring you the very first reviews of America’s favorite novel .

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.

“In her first novel, Harper Lee writes with gentle affection, rich humor, and deep understanding of small-town family life in Alabama … Macomb has its share of eccentrics and evil-doers but Miss Lee has not tried to satisfy the current lust for morbid, grotesque tales of Southern depravity … The dialogue of Miss Lee’s refreshingly varied characters is a constant delight in its authenticity and swift revelation of personality. The events connecting the Finches with the Ewell-Robinson lawsuit develop quietly and logically, unifying the plot and dramatizing the author’s level-headed plea for interracial understanding … it is no disparagement of Miss Lee’s winning book to say that it could be the basis of an excellent film.”

– The New York Times Book Review , July 10, 1960

“The rape trial, Jem’s helling, and even Boo Radley are deeply involved in the irregular and very effective education of Scout Finch. By the time she ends her first-person account at the age of nine, she has learned that people must be judged, but only slowly and thoughtfully.

Author Lee, 34, an Alabaman, has written her first novel with all of the tactile brilliance and none of the preciosity generally supposed to be standard swamp-warfare issue for Southern writers. The novel is an account of an awakening to good and evil, and a faint catechistic flavor may have been inevitable. But it is faint indeed; Novelist Lee‘s prose has an edge that cuts through cant, and she teaches the reader an astonishing number of useful truths about little girls and about Southern life.”

– TIME , August 1, 1960

“All the magic and truth that might seem deceptive or exaggerated in a factual account of a small town unfold beautifully in a new first novel called To Kill a Mockingbird . At a time when so many machine-tooled novels are simply documentaries disguised behind a few fictional changes, it is pleasing to recommend a book that shows what a novelist can accomplish with quite familiar situations … To Kill A Mockingbird opens the chrysalis of childhood quietly and dramatically … Miss Lee’s characters are people to cherish in this winning first novel by a fresh writer with something significant to say, south and north.”

– The New York Times , July 13, 1960

“Almost all the elements of the ‘southern’ novel are to be found somewhere or other in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, but they seem to wear a look of innocence, an aura of freshness, as if we were encountering them for the very first time … there are memorable moments in this story, some vivid and candid portraits in black and white, a gentle, persuasive humor, and a glowing goodness in the central figures. There is a timelessness about them and Miss Lee’s novel leaves one feeling that they will prevail in the difficult and painful adjustments the South must inevitably make. At least one has hope, and is grateful for it.”

–The Los Angeles Times , August 7, 1960

“Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird is sugar-water served with humor … It is frankly and completely impossible, being told in the first person by a six-year-old girl with the prose style of a well-educated adult. Miss Lee has, to be sure, made an attempt to confine the information in the text to what Scout would actually know, but it is no more than a casual gesture toward plausibility … A variety of adults, mostly eccentric in Scout’s judgment, and a continual bubble of incident make To Kill A Mockingbird pleasant, undemanding reading.”

–The Atlantic , August, 1960

“…a wonderfully absorbing story … [it] will come under some fire in the Deep South … The fact is simply that she has written a wonderfully absorbing story, unencumbered by either of the gimmicks—the bedroom or bestiality—which are supposed to be the only things that sell fiction today.”

–The Mobile Press-Register , 1960

Share this:

• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Get the Book Marks Bulletin

Email address:

• Categories Fiction Fantasy Graphic Novels Historical Horror Literary Literature in Translation Mystery, Crime, & Thriller Poetry Romance Speculative Story Collections Non-Fiction Art Biography Criticism Culture Essays Film & TV Graphic Nonfiction Health History Investigative Journalism Memoir Music Nature Politics Religion Science Social Sciences Sports Technology Travel True Crime

April 26, 2024

• Authors recall the dawn of Gmail
• Understanding Shakespeare through fan fiction
• Colin Dickey considers Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’ legacy

To Kill A Mockingbird Broadway Reviews

Reviews of To Kill A Mockingbird on Broadway. See what all the critics had to say and see all the ratings for To Kill A Mockingbird including the New York Times and More...

Critics' Reviews

'To Kill a Mockingbird': Theater Review

Perhaps the most notable achievement of this thoughtful adaptation, and Bartlett Sher's meticulously calibrated Broadway production, is that it takes Harper Lee's 1960 novel - a modern American classic that pretty much all of us know either from studying it in high school or watching the outstanding 1962 film version - and makes us hang on every word as if experiencing the story for the first time.

'To Kill A Mockingbird' review: Aaron Sorkin delivers with new play

In any event, 'To Kill a Mockingbird' (which also sports a period score penned by Tony winner Adam Guettel and played live on organ and guitar) proves to be an engrossing, provocative and uniformly well-acted adaptation - and a fitting addition to a shifting Broadway landscape where an increasing number of plays (including 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,' 'The Ferryman' and 'Network') are gaining the muscularity to stand alongside musicals in prestige and box office power.

‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ Broadway Review: Aaron Sorkin, Jeff Daniels Deliver An Atticus For Our Times

Perhaps Sorkin and Sher felt the play needed Bob's extra villainy to justify Atticus' eventual out-of-character breakdown, the moment when the play's questioning of the book's '60s-vintage liberal ideal comes most fully into focus. If so, they should have trusted their material and Daniels' convincing performance. By the time Atticus comes to question his own moral code, and Sorkin has us contemplating the limits of tolerance and the boundaries of forgiveness, this Mockingbird has already landed its punches.

Review: A Broadway ‘Mockingbird,’ Elegiac and Effective

These are two worthy ideas, if contradictory. In light of racial injustice, accommodation seems to be a white luxury; in light of accommodation, justice seems hopelessly naïve. Perhaps what this beautiful, elegiac version of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' most movingly asks is: Can we ever have both?

BWW Review: Jeff Daniels is Atticus Finch in Aaron Sorkin and Bartlett Sher's Exquisite Adaptation of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

Without knowing any better, one might easily mistake the new stage adaptation of Harper Lee's Pulitzer-winning 1960 novel 'To Kill A Mockingbird' for a revival of a classic Golden Age Broadway drama. So earnest in tone and full of plainspoken poetics is Aaron Sorkin's thoroughly engaging text. So old-school honest are the performances given by director Bartlett Sher's 24-member cast, beautifully framed with an eye toward rural artistry by designers Miriam Buether (sets), Ann Roth (costumes) and Jennifer Tipton (lights).

To Kill a Mockingbird

If Sorkin's adaptation lacks the subtlety and plain-spokenness of Lee's novel, it has moments of old-fashioned power-the playwright knows how to set up a court scene-and others of surprising tenderness, as when he briefly takes the fatherless Dill under his wing. ('You have no business being kind, but there you are,' he tells the boy.) As perhaps befits material that has been a high-school mainstay for decades, this To Kill a Mockingbird has many teachable moments, perhaps a few too many. But it does-and I mean this as a compliment-a very decent job.

Review: In 'To Kill a Mockingbird' on Broadway, the words of Harper Lee but the voice of Aaron Sorkin

Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird' will gratefully always be with us. This is Sorkin's version and, for all the distortions and limitations, it finds ways through Atticus' character to speak directly to our troubled times about the inseparability of race and justice in America. I look forward to future productions from female and African American perspectives that can match this level of theatrical excellence, but they too will be incomplete.

Broadway Review: ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

Against all odds, writer Aaron Sorkin and director Bartlett Sher have succeeded in crafting a stage-worthy adaptation of Harper Lee's classic American novel 'To Kill a Mockingbird.' The ever-likable Daniels, whose casting was genius, gives a strong and searching performance as Atticus Finch, the small-town Southern lawyer who epitomizes the ideal human qualities of goodness, tolerance and decency. Celia Keenan-Bolger, best remembered for 'The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee' but grown up now, is smart, funny, and entirely convincing as Scout, Atticus's precocious 6-year-old daughter and the narrator of the story. The rest of the large and very fine cast perform their parts with all their hearts, under Sher's impeccably fine-tuned direction.

To Kill a Mockingbird review – Aaron Sorkin spellbinds Broadway

It's here that Sorkin has most directly intervened, expanding the roles of Tom Robinson (Gbenga Akinnagbe) and Atticus's black housekeeper, Calpurnia (LaTanya Richardson Jackson), so that the white voices aren't the only ones heard. These moves can't really disguise a story about a white savior who sees more and knows more than the people around him. (White saviors - lawyers, newsmen, a president - are big with Sorkin.) The gestures toward the present day - mostly reminders that racism stems from feelings of inequality and economic insecurity - aren't especially necessary or helpful.

'To Kill a Mockingbird' on Broadway: Harper Lee's story is dragged into the present by Aaron Sorkin

Aaron Sorkin's genuinely radical and thoroughly gripping new Broadway adaptation of this iconic novel - which opened Thursday night at the Shubert Theatre with Jeff Daniels in the starring role - has no truck with the heroic image of Atticus, his wide-eyed daughter Scout and the famous Finch briefcase, a stand-in for the slow march toward justice, all striding together into a new American dawn. No siree. Sorkin has written a 'Mockingbird' that fits this riven American moment. And the director, Bartlett Sher, has felt little need to assuage with sentimentality.

Aaron Sorkin modernizes, Sorkin-izes To Kill a Mockingbird: EW review

The answer to that question, after seeing the lush new production at New York's historic Shubert Theater, feels like an impressed, qualified yes. While Lee's vivid snapshot of the Great Depression-era Deep South is its own valuable time capsule, the shifting sands of race and justice in America (and all the things that haven't changed, depressingly, in the more than eight decades since) is well served by at least some new perspective. And the Emmy- and Oscar-winning Sorkin - ratatat duke of dialogue, reigning king of the walk-and-talk - does feel like a smart choice to drag it all into the 21st century.

'To Kill a Mockingbird' review: More legal thriller than coming-of-age story

What's missing from Aaron Sorkin's new adaptation is the novel's vividly described community, or the sense that the story is just as much about Scout's coming of age as it is about the crusade by Atticus, her father. Sorkin (the writer behind 'The West Wing' and 'The Social Network,' among others) has made his play a John Grisham-esque legal thriller revolving around a charismatic man. Atticus may now show hints of trouble and doubt, but he's still the moral lighthouse guiding Maycomb, Alabama.

Theater Review: Aaron Sorkin’s To Kill a Mockingbird Adaptation Walks the Walk

Bartlett Sher and his designers have created a shifting, breathing, gorgeously orchestrated world, and while the top-billed Jeff Daniels is indeed lighting up the stage as the story's iconic lawyer, every member of the ensemble shines alongside him. As a company, under Sher's careful and majestic direction, they are incandescent.

Aaron Sorkin’s Radical Remake of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

Daniels' Atticus is folksy and ruffled, without Peck's idealistic though hardened eye. He keeps his head down. He doesn't want to confront anything. Daniels plays him as a man in eternal retreat, even if he is confronting racism in its most dangerous form. Daniels' Atticus is there and also absent, while everyone around him wants him to look up, be present, take a more obvious stand.

‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Broadway Review: Aaron Sorkin Revisits Harper Lee’s Classic

Where Sorkin succeeds is in getting us to rethink an American classic without any fussiness or archness. Director Bartlett Sher, who's best known for his Tony-winning work on big musicals like 'South Pacific' and 'My Fair Lady,' strikes the right balance between the epic and the intimate. And he smartly mimics the breakneck pace of Sorkin's film and TV projects, cramming Lee's large and sprawling story in a production that runs just over two and a half hours but seem to just fly by. Despite its infelicities, this 'To Kill a Mockingbird' is crackerjack entertainment.

‘Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, a New Play by Aaron Sorkin’ and ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales’ Reviews: Perils and Perks of Reworking Classics

Christopher Sergel's workmanlike 1991 stage adaptation of 'Mockingbird,' a regional-theater staple that I saw done three years ago by Florida's Orlando Shakespeare Theatre, is both truer to the book and far more dramatically effective. Moreover, that company's small-scale staging, sensitively directed by Thomas Ouellette, was superior in every way to Bartlett Sher's overblown, over-designed Broadway version, which is devoid of credible local color (hardly anybody on stage acts or sounds as if they've ever traveled much farther south than Cleveland). Mr. Daniels, a fine actor whom I suspect has been disserved by his director, paints Atticus with the coarsest of brushes, though the sad truth is that save for Adam Guettel's homespun incidental music and a handful of strong performances, most notably by Mr. Akinnagbe and Dakin Matthews, who plays the judge, nothing about this 'Mockingbird' is any good at all. Shame on Harper Lee's estate for letting it happen.

TICKET CENTRAL

Recommended For You

• Sign up / Sign in
• Voter Guide

• Create new account
• Request new password
• Write a Story
• Search this site:

To Kill A Mockingbird remains shattering and tragic

• Government & Politics
• Economy & Business
• Sustainability
• Community Safety
• Entertainment
• Spirituality
• Food & Drink
• Place Matters.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Review by Rodman Philbrick

• Search Please fill out this field.
• Newsletters
• Sweepstakes

Mother Play review: Jim Parsons gives standout performance in predictable story

The new work by playwright Paula Vogel ("How I Learned to Drive") also stars Jessica Lange and Celia Keenan-Bolger.

Christian Holub is a writer covering comics and other geeky pop culture. He's still mad about 'Firefly' getting canceled.

First of all, it feels like we could’ve taken another crack at this title. A play about a mother and her relationship to her children, and it’s just called Mother Play ? There’s minimalism, and then there’s calling Moby-Dick “Whale Book.” This complaint isn’t incidental, but indicative of how the new work by esteemed playwright Paula Vogel excels in some aspects, but feels incomplete in other regards. 

Jessica Lange stars as Phyllis, the titular mother, who has recently separated from her cheating husband when the play opens in 1964. The only other actors in the production are Jim Parsons and Celia Keenan-Bolger ( To Kill a Mockingbird ), who play her children Carl and Martha. Like all of us, Phyllis is a product of her time and place. Born to Depression-era parents in the South, she is deeply entrenched in early heteronormative expectations around marriage, family, and education (she was told by her mother that “the filthier a woman’s floor is, the higher her degree” in a pejorative way) even though Phyllis’ own experience with traditional marriage is her philandering husband leaving her to raise two children on her own. She’s so set in her ways that she can’t even imagine that her son (who dreams of being a regular at the Algonquin Round Table) and her daughter (who dresses in flannel and pants to avoid the unwanted attention of groping men on the bus) might have different ideas about life and sex. 

Joan Marcus

The family’s poverty is depicted creatively by director Tina Landau: To mark their entrance into their new home, the stage opens covered in furniture, which the actors themselves move around and unpack. One of them even starts hidden behind a recliner, which makes for a delightfully dramatic entrance. That early apartment turns out to be infested, but Landau depicts the pests with creative shadow puppetry. It’s likely you’ll never be so pleased to see a roach in real life as the ones that show up here. 

The subtitle of Mother Play is “A Play in Five Evictions,” and the story (which stretches from the mid-’60s to the present day) is structured by various moves in and out of different apartments. This helps mark the passage of time and the ever-changing nature of the familial relationships, but gets a little confusing when some happen in quick succession — and especially so when another countdown (the amount of martinis Phyllis drinks at a post-graduation celebration) suddenly enters the mix. 

Parsons is the standout here. It’s awesome as always to see the actor use his post- Big Bang Theory security to be a prolific Broadway actor, and his performance is so funny, charming, and moving (look out for one riveting monologue where he explains his sexuality by imagining himself as Anastasia Romanov in the midst of the Russian Revolution) that you really feel his absence after Carl moves away to college and embraces the counterculture that Phyllis hates so much. Keenan-Bolger has the least flashy role, serving as narrator and emotional sounding-board for both of the other characters, but really gives the play its heart.

Lange is as good as you might expect playing an embittered aging woman pained by the way society has brushed her aside, but her performance isn’t powerful enough to justify some of Vogel’s creative risks. After Phyllis succeeds in alienating both her children for a time, there comes a scene that is just Lange alone on stage for several minutes, puttering around her apartment. It's obviously meant to illustrate the loneliness of this woman who wasn't given many choices in life and still can't help making the wrong ones over and over again, but it doesn't take long to make that point. The scene gets boring very quickly.

In addition to her years of teaching playwriting at Brown and Yale, Vogel is best-known for her Pulitzer-winning 1997 play How I Learned to Drive , which finally made it to Broadway in 2022 and remains unquestionably one of the very best works of recent American theater. That’s a hard standard to match, especially since the various twists and turns are almost impossible to predict when watching How I Learned to Drive for the first time. By contrast, Mother Play probably isn’t the first story you’ve ever seen about American parents failing to understand their children during the ‘60s and '70s. Some creative choices don’t pay off, but Vogel’s latest hits the emotional beats it needs to, and is certainly a powerful reminder to call your mom now and then.  B–

Related content:

• Jim Parsons says reprising Big Bang Theory role on Young Sheldon was 'very weird' but 'beautiful'
• Patriots review: The Crown creator's new play is creatively staged, but lacks insight into Putin's rise
• The Notebook  review: Nicholas Sparks' novel leaps off the page and onto the stage in emotional new musical

Related Articles

• Free Speech America
• MRC Culture
• MRC Business
• Testimonials
• About NewsBusters Contact Us Advertise Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Use

The mission of the Media Research Center is to document and combat the falsehoods and censorship of the news media, entertainment media and Big Tech in order to defend and preserve America's founding principles and Judeo-Christian values. The MRC is a research and education organization operating under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and contributions to the MRC are tax-deductible.

© 2005-2024, Media Research Center. All Rights Reserved.

Sign up for our NB Daily newsletter to receive the latest news.

Kimmel Mocks Red States For Book Bans, Cites Books Banned By The Left

Tuesday was World Book Day and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel celebrated by bringing a quintet of librarians together to tell Republicans to “shut the [bleep] up” over their supposed book bans. The only problem was that the books Kimmel and his new friends highlighted, such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill A Mockingbird , are regularly targeted by race-obsessed progressives.

Kimmel began by declaring, “It’s also World Book Day today or as the state of Florida calls it, Bonfire Day.”

After a digression into the demise of the phone book and the Yellow Pages, Kimmel continued, “All jokes aside, this World Book Day is a weird one. There are at least 100 bills in various red states, three of which have become law already, threatening librarians with prison for the crime of lending books. Books that aren't government-approved. Which to me, not only is this the opposite of what our country's supposed to be about, it's completely nuts. We're going to throw librarians in jail for loaning out Huckleberry Finn. This is not what they signed up for. I think it's disgusting and wrong and anti-American.”

Schools that target Huckleberry Finn generally do so under the guise that the book contains the N-word and therefore removing the book from the curriculum is needed “to protect the dignity of our students.” 

Kimmel then played a sketch the show put together of five librarians reacting to Kimmel’s anti-red state diatribe. The librarians informed viewers that they are “not groomers,” “not sex fiends,” “not pornographers,” and “not Satanists.”

One lamented, “Some people want to make us criminals,” while another declared, “It's not meth. It's Judy Blume.” They wondered why Republicans want to “make books the enemy” and “make knowledge the enemy.” Three of them responded that conservatives should “shut the [bleep] up.”

In a post-credit scene, one added, “You can have To Kill A Mockingbird when you pry it from my cold, dead hands! Or you can check it out.”

Like Huckleberry Finn , To Kill A Mockingbird is targeted by blue school districts for its unsettling, but historically accurate language, while also being attacked for the alleged white savior complex of its protagonist. Meanwhile, Kimmel’s monologue and the corresponding skit from the librarians were just another case of Jimmy Kimmel Live! not sufficiently checking their facts.

Here is a transcript for the April 23 show :

ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live! 4/23/2024 11:46 PM ET JIMMY KIMMEL:  It’s also World Book Day today or as the state of Florida calls it, Bonfire Day. … All jokes aside, this World Book Day is a weird one. There are at least 100 bills in various red states, three of which have become law already, threatening librarians with prison for the crime of lending books. Books that aren't government-approved. Which to me, not only is this the opposite of what our country's supposed to be about, it's completely nuts. We're going to throw librarians in jail for loaning out Huckleberry Finn. This is not what they signed up for. I think it's disgusting and wrong and anti-American. But don't take it from me, take it from these real-life librarians. MALE LIBRARIAN: I'm a librarian. FEMALE LIBRARIAN: I'm a librarian. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 2: I've been a librarian for 26 years. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 3: We're librarians. MALE LIBRARIAN: Masters of the library sciences. FEMALE LIBRARIAN: Not groomers. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 2: Not sex fiends. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 4: Not pornographers. MALE LIBRARIAN: We're the people who hand out library cards. FEMALE LIBRARIAN: We do story times. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 4: We put away the books you guys leave out on the tables instead of putting them on the reshelf cart. FEMALE LIBRARIAN: The clearly labeled reshelf cart. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 2: You can read that, right? MALE LIBRARIAN: We're not the deep state. FEMALE LIBRARIAN: We're not Satanists. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 4: We're librarians. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 3: But some people want to make us criminals. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 2: Put us in jail. MALE LIBRARIAN: I would not do well in jail. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 4: It's not meth. It's Judy Blume. MALE LIBRARIAN: Judy effing Bloom. FEMALE LIBRARIAN: Judy effing Bloom. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 4: Fine us thousands of dollars? FEMALE LIBRARIAN 3: Like we have thousands of dollars. FEMALE LIBRARIAN: Make books the enemy? MALE LIBRARIAN: Make knowledge the enemy? FEMALE LIBRARIAN 4: And you know what we say to this? ALL: Shh! FEMALE LIBRARIAN: Shut the [bleep] up! FEMALE LIBRARIAN 2: Shut the [bleep] up. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 4: Please shut the [bleep] up. MALE LIBRARIAN: What's wrong with you? NARRATOR: Paid for by Americans Against Americans Against Librarians. FEMALE LIBRARIAN 2: You can have To Kill A Mockingbird when you pry it from my cold, dead hands! Or you can check it out.

Donor Privacy Policy

• Jimmy Kimmel
• Conservatives & Republicans
• Jimmy Kimmel Live
• Political Groups

39 Times Facebook Interfered in US Elections Since 2008

At Least 90% of TV News Fails to Call Trump Prosecutors ‘Democrats’