To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
|
List Price: Our Price: $3.00 You Save: $4.99 (62%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of To Kill a Mockingbird
Book Review: Read To Kill a Mockingbird!!! Aideen Farrelly,Dublin,Ireland
Summary: 5 Stars
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Book Review by Aideen Farrelly-Dublin, Ireland
In normal circumstances, the books we are required to read in school are boring, dull, old-fashioned and impossible to relate with. `To Kill a Mockingbird' however is the complete opposite to everything I have just mentioned.
Despite being set in the 1930's, this classic novel's words, morals and humour are still completely relevant today.
The small town of Maycomb, Alabama, is home to a host of wonderful characters. We are told the story by Scout, a six-year-old tomboy struggling to understand `grown-up' attitudes, while staying true to her overalls and troublesome streak.
Her father, Atticus, is my personal favourite character. Atticus Finch is a widowed lawyer who decides to take on the case of Tom Robinson-A black man charged with the rape of a white girl, Mayella Ewell. The story, of course, is set during the time of segregation in America so Atticus' decision cause uproar in the extremely racist and prejudiced town.
Scout's 10-year-old brother Jem, is also a main character in the book. We learn of his aspirations to be a lawyer like his Dad. We view through his sister's eyes how he matures and grows during the time of the trial.
Some more memorable characters are Calpurnia, the Finch Family's black housemaid, who is really more like a member of the family. Aunt Alexandra, Atticus' sister, who comes to stay to `fix' the family with her prude ideas and change Scout into a young woman. Dill, the nephew of the Finch's neighbour, Miss. Rachel, who comes to stay during the summer. Mrs. Dubose, a dying old woman addicted to morphine determined to die clean. She backs up the strong theme of courage that runs throughout the book.
Also Boo Radley. Boo is always on the children's minds, whether it is because something out of the ordinary has happened or they're just trying to catch a glimpse of him as he hasn't left his house in 15 years. Boo has a big impact on the plot of the book.
This book is suitable for anyone who is capable of being completely captivated by an amazingly compelling read.
I would completely recommend this book. This is because of everything I have mentioned. Its characters, the story, the lessons that can be learned from it, everything!
Whether it's just to see what you're missing out on, for school or just to find out what all the fuss is about, read To Kill a Mockingbird. I promise that you will not be disappointed!
Definitely 5 stars!!!
Book Review: The Finch and the Mockingbird.
Summary: 5 Stars
This superb book contains several moral lessons and subtly points out faults that many of us share. Most importantly, we must follow our conscience and do what we know is right no matter the possible cost. That takes a great deal of courage and most of us have at one time or another failed in this respect. Harper Lee's Atticus Finch on the other hand was more than up to the task even though most of the town and his family were against him. Lee makes no effort to hide the fact that often there will be consequences for those who take a stand and those consequences will not always be pleasant.
Atticus Finch is not the main character of this story however. The main characters are Atticus' son Jem and his daughter Scout who tells the story. I advise that you forget looking for the moral implications of the story for they are evident and it is much easier to enjoy this book if you just read it and don't try to dissect it. Jem (Jeremy) and Scout (Jean Louise) are probably the most interesting literary children since Tom and Huck and some of their adventures will remind the reader of Twain's creations. In short, this book is just plain fun to read and I regret terribly having waited so long to read it!
During most of the story the children's adventures tend to revolve around the Radley house and it's most sinister occupant, Boo (Arthur) Radley. Boo is a recluse that hasn't been spotted out of his house by a reliable source in many years and of course the rumor mill in a small town has turned him into a monster that eats raw squirrels. In the end, the Boo Radley story line presents the reader with yet another moral lesson but the trail that leads to this lesson takes many interesting twists and turns.
One will also find a very good description of the twentieth century South in Lee's work. From sleeping on the porch in the Summertime to watching the old men loaf around the courthouse I can honestly say I have been there and done that. Class distinction has always been very important in the South and Harper Lee works hard to bring that distinction out. Thankfully African-Americans are currently judged on their merit and not their race so that they fall into the caste system all up and down the ladder. In the 1930s though things were much different. The three lowest rungs on the ladder were poor white trash (the Cunninghams) and low down white trash (the Ewells), with blacks at the bottom. The significance of this being that at that point in time even the lowest whites would be believed over any African-American.
Atticus Finch was for his time and place a fairly odd bird and thank God that there really were Finches out there to look out for the mockingbirds of the world.
Book Review: "Lawyers Were Children Once Too": To Kill a Mockingbird
Summary: 5 Stars
Oddly, I'd never read To Kill a Mockingbird as a high school student. Nor had I ever seen the famous film with Gregory Peck. Fortunately, I also avoided learning the entire plot through cultural osmosis. Sure, I knew who Boo Radley was-- didn't I? Atticus Finch... yeah, I know who that is... right?Boy, was I wrong. Last week I finally decided it'd been long enough, and I sank into Harper Lee's only novel with high expectations. And I was certainly not disappointed. With its slow, warm and evocative opening chapters, Mockingbird starts off like a sulty summer day in the South. Lee depicts a South of "whistling bob white," biscuits and warm milk, and ladies who on the hottest days bathe twice by noon and then douse themselves in lavender-smelling powder.
Jean-Louise Finch, better known as Scout, narrates the story with the keen eye of an adult looking back on a childhood rich with incidents that shaped who she has become. Scout reminded me of some of Carson McCullers's heroines (Member of the Wedding, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter), but without the morbid loneliness and heartbreak. Scout might be described as a tomboy, but that would be doing her a disservice. Her adventures with her older brother Jem, and their dimunitive friend Dill (real name: Charles Baker Harris. "Your name's longer'n you are," Jem points out) evoke the timeless place of childhood.
As for Atticus Finch, what can one say about a father who seems to embody the greatest of virtues? He is tolerant, patient, kind, and understanding. He does not meddle with his children's affairs, he speaks to them as fellow adults (he allows them to call him "Atticus"), and his skill as a lawyer is legendary. Lee presents Atticus in a tough and sensitive manner, so that his believability is paramount.
The other characters in the book are also depicted with great skill: Aunt Alexandra, bane of Scout's existence; Miss Maudie, who gives as good as she gets when harassed by intolerant neighbors; Calpurnia, the ever-present black maid who has as much a hand in Jem and Scout's well-being as Atticus; and of course the Ewells, whose poverty and ignorance help set the plot in motion.
Harper Lee has written a wonderful book that pulses with life, with compassion, and easy good humor. Watching Atticus face down an angry mob set on lynching a black man, or racing with Jem as he escapes gunshots from the Radley house, or sitting with Scout as she forced to join her aunt's church lady reception, or taking that long midnight walk with Jem and Scout, is pure joy; these are scenes that reverberate in the reader's mind and surely in the minds of several generations of readers. I'm glad I can now say I'm one of them.
Book Review: Untouchable in stature, intimate in its approach.
Summary: 5 Stars
Superlatives no longer mean much to this venerable classic, one of the best novels ever written. So I'm more interested in describing what makes the book work.Humour is one crucial factor. By never succumbing to the pretentious grandiosity that has plagued many a novelist since the form's rise to prominence in the Victoria era, To Kill a Mockingbird achieves an endearing relationship with its reader. Every character is vivid, with strengths and faults, and Lee achieves that difficult amalgam in first-person narratives presented as recollections: A mixture of an adult's rhetorical power and a child's keen, curious eye. The language is fresh and unburdened by the moralizing which frequently cripples prose narrative (especially books which deal with sensitive issues as this one does).
Lee made a perfect choice in personalizing a socio-political issue. To Kill a Mockingbird is predominantly the coming-of-age story of Jem and Scout Finch, and the themes of racism, injustice, conservatism and the Depression are all the better served this way. Issues do not come alive except through the living, breathing experience of their participants and Scout Finch's particular take on the events of this book only makes those events gain in moral strength, not diminish.
Boo Radley, Atticus Finch, Scout and Jem, Miss Maudie...the characters of this book have achieved an iconic status rare in modern literature. And it has achieved this not by making them Nietzschean uebermenschen, but by entering into their lives with fair, enthusiastic frankness. And to end off, this is one of only a handful of truly successful negotiations between the dramatic (eg. theatre, screenwriting) and the narrative (eg. prose narrative, filmmaking, folk storysongs) I can think of. Lee's dialogue is sharp enough, and immediate enough, that even if we pared this book down to just its dialogue and situations, we'd end up with a remarkably powerful play. As it stands now, it's a truly successful crossover, its dramatic situations and character interactions every bit as convincing as the engrossing power of its storytelling.
I am all for challenging the canons of all artistic forms, but this one is about as close to perfect as I've seen a novel come, ranking right up there with the greatest of the greats. It has its weak chinks -- Atticus' misunderstanding of Heck Tate's point in the second-last chapter is befuddling, for example, but these are so minute that to dwell on them would be overkill. Thematically worthy to be called an American epic, this book never forgets the personal in light of the social. We should be grateful it was ever written.
Book Review: Could read it an infinite number of times!
Summary: 5 Stars
I read To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. This classic book is about a little Southern girl Scout and her experiences growing up in the 1930's. It begins with a set up of things to come,such as Scout's experiences and the people she observes. Her guardians, her quiet, lovable lawyer father Atticus, and her Negro cook Cal help Scout and her tough,yet caring brother Jem through these experiences in Maycomb County, Alabama. Scout, Jem and their curious friend Dill make up plays about their reclusive and mysterious next door neighbor Arthur "Boo" Radley. He is the cause of scare and mystery and their lives. This sets up the ending, as does the racism of the town, shown by the neighborhood gossip, the piggish lazy Mr. Ewell, Scout's strict Aunt and the tyrant down the street Old Mrs. Dubose. The children learn many things about the town in which they live from their neighbor, sweet, tough Miss Maudie. One thing they learn is that they should never kill a mockingbird because those birds are just there to make people happy and they never do anything wrong at all. In the second half the children learn more about their father's trial defending a Negro being tried for rape. This man Tom Robinson is going against the lowlife Mr. Ewell who says Tom raped his daughter. The citizens are against Tom for the most part except for a handful. In the courtroom Atticus makes his case so strong that Scout, Jem, and Dill(who are watching)think that he cannot lose. However it is a white man's word against a black man's... The rest you have to read for yourself because from the trial it grows into such an exciting climax, and ends so meaningfully, pretaining to why you should never kill a mockingbird. Definitely think about this quote reading the book, it helps your understanding a lot. I found I couldn't put it down. The beginning goes slow but it forshadows things to come. You think how unfair and unpleasant life can be sometimes and these children learn this at a very young age. It made me want to change thingsso it couldn't happen anymore, and it made me very angry at such unfairness, such as in the lives of African-Americans, like the innocent Tom Robinson. The ending was so perfectly lead to and meaningful that I had to go back and read it again(and again)! I recommend the book for people 14 and up because I feel you should be old and smart enough to grasp the conflicts and the complex plot. However this book is timeless and everyone above 14 should read it at least once in a lifetime. This can teach you about life and growing up better than anything you will ever read so pick it up...soon.