To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee

After having read this 30 years ago in high school, I recently returned to it (as my daughter is also reading it at school) and was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed it again.

This is not a detailed review, but an encouragement to go back to the books you read at school that you enjoyed. The ones that were good, challenging, and interesting, and try them again, years later, as an adult.

Told through the eyes of young girl Scout and her older brother Jem, we learn of their town of Mayfield. Early on the children’s focus is on the Radley house where the mysterious Boo Radley lives, never seen by anyone. The second half turns to the trial of Tom Robinson, a black man wrongfully accused of the rape of a poor white woman. Atticus Finch, the children’s father, is Tom’s lawyer and while he is convinced of the need to represent Tom faithfully, he knows the challenges that it presents to their family in this racially charged community. Harper Lee’s assessment of a southern US community in the 1930s rings true, and aspects of her analysis are still very relevant today. One of the most insightful and prescient comments was this:

‘As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it — whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.’

Atticus was speaking so quietly his last word crashed on our ears. I looked up, and his face was vehement. ‘There's nothing more sickening to me than a low-grade white man who'll take advantage of a Negro’s ignorance. Don't fool yourselves—it's all adding up and one of these days we're going to pay the bill for it. I hope it's not in you children's time.’ (Chapter 23)

Other books that I read in high school that I have enjoyed returning to are:

• Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham (leading me to discover many others of his) 
• A Patch of Blue, Elizabeth Kata 
• Persuasion, Jane Austen 

Some I still plan to get back to one day include: 1984, Lord of the Flies and Animal Farm. I’m pretty sure these are on our kids’ reading lists in future years, so I may get to them soon!