Open discussion with the Midmorning Book Club: To Kill a Mockingbird

It is a big book, and I'm ashamed that I avoided it for so many years. It's the snob in me--if a book gets too popular, and especially if it becomes a standard selection for high schools, I tend to avoid it. But this book transcends its own popularity. Who can help but love Scout? And who can fail to appreciate the importance of Harper Lee's vision in the time when the book was first published. An essay on what is best in America could be called "From Harper Lee to Barack Obama."

Bruce, you know I missed it in school and ended up reading it outloud to my better half. What a tremendous introduction to the story, because it forced us to read it slowly and with a lot of discovery.

I'm listening to the radio program now. Funny how at the time the publisher didn't expect a book about race would "cause people to run to the bookstore."

I read the book in eight grde and i was just so fascinated by it and it was so inspiring and when i read i just couldnt put it down

Mockingbird is both my favorite book and favorite movie - I've read the book and seen the movie so many times, I nearly have them committed to memory. The story is very much a part of me - I even wrote my college entrance essay about my first time reading the book and what it meant to me.

The social justice aspect of the book was especially meaningful - Atticus is a shining example of the importance of doing the right thing no matter what. He was not a fiery activist - just an everyday man who knew he had to follow his conscience even though it went against the beliefs and opinions of his neighbors, friends, and society at large - A powerful message for the early 1960's. Perhaps more people should revisit the book and consider the importance of this kind of social justice in our world today.

Do you think that the response to this book is different for African-Americans or other minority populations than it is for European or white Americans? It looks like a caller has begun to address this question. This book had a great impact on me but it was a long time ago that I read it, so some of the details escape me about this impact. I think I'll reread it now, though.

TKAM was one of the best books I was ever forced to read by a junior high school teacher. We read it in my 7th grade honors English class, and I've never forgotten it. What an important work of American fiction!

Wendy, you're right, now would be a good time to revisit this classic. The 1962 movie with Gregory Peck would be a good choice, too. Gregory Peck's performance really defined that role, I couldn't imagine anyone else as Atticus Finch.

i believe the respnse is probabably very different because of the trial and how it is totally unfair and everyone knows that tom robinson is innocent but still people hold prejudices and then i saw that tom couldnt handle it anymore so he decided to try to run away from the prison and atticus thought that they could bring this trial to supreme court and they could win it

It's one of my all-time favorite novels.

There is not one sentence in the book that should be taken away. Not one badly-written sentence or extraneous word.

I thought that, though the main part of the book IS, I think, about racism in America, I think there is an overarching theme that we all deserve respect and decent treatment. I haven't read it in some time but I was always struck by the other plots involving the addicted terminal old lady who Scout reads to and also by the fact that Boo Radley was hidden away and never got the help he probably needed. In fact, the story about his stabbing someone for no particular reason is rumor -- maybe he was just a little different and his socially-conscious family simply were ashamed that he didn't fit in. Maybe the person he stabbed actually did deserve it. We'll never know if there was more to that story I guess.

(Just a P.S.) Kari could easily do another show devoted to this book. (Can you hear us, Kari? [big :) ] )

I agree that the program was much too short. Easily another one could be done. I am one of the many who reread this book. The book and the movie are my favorites. On my last reading a few days ago, I wondered at Atticus's decision to let Scout and Jem stay in the balcony with the Rev for the trial. Obviously he trusts the children's abilities to handle the information that will be discussed, but do you suppose he also feels that having HIS children sitting with the black members of the community may lead jurors to think again about their verdict?

This story just resonates all the more after hearing Obama's speech on Tuesday. I get those simultaneous "wow, we've come a long way" and "my God, we have a long way to go" feelings. It's hard to describe.

Re: "Sticking up for the South..."

I think that the archive of today's program will show that I never actually mentioned the South in my comments. I mentioned that I was the only Black student in an otherwise all White classroom in 1969 (as was the case for all of my K-8 schooling save the 2nd grade), but I never said where that classroom was. It happens that the classroom was in suburban New York. I also never said anything that could be construed as suggesting that racial injustice was/is the exclusive province of the states of Old Confederacy. The deadliest race riots in our country's history were the New York Draft Riots of 1863 (really an anti-Black pogrom). Parenthetically, that didn't keep my best friend from being Irish. The difference of course is that racial discrimination and injustice had the official protection of statute in "The South" (read: "Jim Crow") until 1965.

David is making a crucial point. The one bad effect of novels about race set in the South is that they can blind people in the North to their own racism. I'm 67 years old, and I went to public schools in Minneapolis K-12. I never had a black classmate. One day at Southwest High we had a black substitute teacher. It was a huge deal. As an adult, I lived 28 years in New Olreans before moving back here, where I again countered some of that old regional arrogance about the ignorant and racist South--arrogance from people who live in all-white neighborhoods, go to all-white churches, etc.

I read this book when I was quite young and I remember after reading the novel I wanted to be Scout. I even tried making people call me Scout.
When I watched the movie, it did not even close meet my expectations I held for the book.
I do suppose that movies never do out weigh a book, do they?

Great book ......... Read it a long time ago.... mainly because I had to but I appreaciate it more now