Excellent Book: Sociologists should use it.

books:

	• To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2002 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 1920 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Gritty, Heartbreaking, and Timeless

I had put off writing this review for a long time because, really, what can one say about this memorable, widely popular coming-of-age story except that there is a good reason To Kill a Mockingbird was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the U.S.

For you contrarians who haven't read the book, this is the story of the Finch family told from daughter Scout's point of view. Scout's attorney father, Atticus, is defending a black man accused of raping a young white woman in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. The story is set years before the civil rights movement began, and the plot is a catalyst for a novel that is so much more than a scathing commentary on racism in the deep south. This is a gripping, gritty portrayal about growing up amidst the fury, ignorance, intolerance, and fear that fueled peoples' lives and thoughts, and still does, to varying degrees.

Like many people, I first read this novel through our school's curriculum about forty years ago. Five years ago, my daughter read it in her high school English class and she loved it too. This novel is timeless, not only for the poignant, beautiful language and heartbreaking conflict, but for the relevancy of its message. I've read a lot of novels in my time, but I still remember this one clearly--many people do--for good reason.

Debra
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Taxed to Death (1st in Alex Bellamy Series)

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Excellent Book: Sociologists should use it.

For a person who tends to be overly critical of religious institutions, I am hardly ever critical of "good" religious people. In this book, there's an exemplar of what a good religious-Christian person is in Atticus Finch. For anyone who thinks this book is solely about racism, which I did prior to having read it or even having seen the movie-adaptation, would be a gross oversimplification of the novel. It's an exploration in morality and Lee uses a very powerful vehicle: Children. Children learn through, what most call growing up, socialization and the social norms and understandings guiding everyday life. Here, Lee focuses on primary agents, notably the family. You see a stark contrast within the Finch family between Atticus and his "proper" sister Alexandra. The morality each shares is different. Therefore, it stands to reason that children will think in very different moral terms.

Using children is powerful because in many ways, they are a tabula rosa. However, if you have an extraordinary person like an Atticus Finch teaching morality, then you realize that the social word is full of immorality and illogicalness. This is what Harper Lee points out with the problems of Social Inequality, of a pseudo-Caste system, and of racism. Both Jem and Scout see and come into conflict with these ideas in major and minor things: Who is acceptable to bring home to dinner all the way to institutional racism within the legal system. These are norms and values most people accept in the town. However, she implicitly points out that that everyone is a product of some environment and some way of learning: As Atticus tells Scout and Jem to put themselves in others skin before they act... They understand why some people act the way they do, such as poor Boo Radley. What this does is point that there is both good and evil in people but if you got to know them... you'd see the good. Although she does give a caveat later in the novel about how some people can never be reached. In the end, there is good and there is evil... and they both co-exist.

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To Kill A Mokingbird

The Book Came in a timely fashion. Just as the seller described. I would recommend purchasing from them to friends and family. That says a lot to me.

THE American novel

Although I own old copies, I wanted the anniversary issue as this is a book that was a huge influence on my life from back in 8th grade. For anyone who hasn't read it (over and over again) you are really missing out. Please don't just watch the movie even though it was well done. Get yourself into the book!

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has earned many distinctions since its original publication in 1960. It won the Pulitzer Prize, has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than thirty million copies worldwide, and been made into an enormously popular movie. Most recently, librarians across the country gave the book the highest of honors by voting it the best novel of the twentieth century.

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