There is no better time than now to read this remarkable book. (To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee)

Member Name: maria14

Product:	To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Date:	23/01/09 (191 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A compelling story that gently deals with society's most brutal truths

Disadvantages: None - this is a book that should be read

This book has been reviewed on DooYoo many times, but not within the last 4 years. This is one book that every one should read, and there can never be a better time to read it, or re read as now, in the wake of the inauguration of America's first black president.

It tells the story of three children living in Alabama during the times of the Great Depression. Overtly, it is a story of how the three of them try to lure out a mysterious recluse called Boo Radley, who has been locked up in his home by his own family for 25 years.

Whilst the thread of this story runs right the way through the book, its themes are ones of poverty, class and gender discrimination, and most importantly and notoriously, race discrimination.

The father of two of the children, Atticus Finch, is a lawyer. During the course of the book, he is called to defend a young black male, Tom Robinson, who is accused of raping a white woman. Atticus takes the case in the face of severe disapproval from the town's people and the book follows in detail the horrors that unfold both inside and outside of the courtroom.

Written by Harper Lee in the late 1950's, it was met with critical acclaim and became an instant best seller. A measure of its power as a book it that it has also been the subject of several campaigns in the US for its removal from public classrooms.

Part of the book's intensity stems from the fact the story is told through the eyes of a six year old child, Atticus's daughter Scout. This enables the author to deal with issues that run deep to society's core with the all seeing, unflinching and non judgemental eye of a child. As a result, the narrative runs quickly and gently over themes that would be unwieldy and painful from an adult perspective.

This unflinching eye also means that racial epithets appear through the book, when they are used by adults and on occasion, by the child herself, as she struggles to make sense of the values of the adults who surround her.

I began reading this book out loud to my ten year old son, remembering the book for its wonderful writing and compelling story. I had forgotten about some of the language used, and was for a moment discomforted by it. He became so enthralled by the plot, that he took over reading it himself and it is noteworthy, that more than any other book he has ever read. he wanted to discuss its plot and its issues with me afterwards.

The racial epithets used by the characters are part of the painful truth it represents of America during the Great Depression.

The importance of the book becomes still more apparent, when one considers when it was written. Published in 1960, it was written in a time of wide spread racial segregation in many American states. Rosa Parks had become famous for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a bus, whilst most notoriously of all, the trial of the killers of Emmett Till had been concluded just a few years before.

Emmett Till was a 14 year old African American boy, who had been horrendously beaten mutilated and murdered by three white men, who claimed he had whistled at a white girl. Despite compelling evidence of their guilt, an all white all male jury took minutes to acquit all three men of Emmett Till's murder. One of the jurors afterwards made the infamous comment that they would have returned a verdict even sooner, had they not stopped for a soda.

The fictional trial of Tom Robinson in the book has strong echoes of the Emmett Till case.

The society presented by Harper Lee in 'To Kill A Mocking Bird' was still very much in existance in the 1960's. It puts into sharp focus the enormity of Barack Obama's election as president of America.

'To Kill a Mockingbird' has for many years been a standard GSCE text. It is the one book I know that survives blunt and clumsy dissection by secondary school english teachers.

It is a beautiful book that deals with society's heart of darkeness. This was Harper Lee's first book, and her last. Whilst she trained as a lawyer and wrote papers dealing with racial discrimination in society, she never wrote another book.

This is sad but fitting. The book is perfection and in my view, could never be bettered.

Summary: The finest book ever written