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Summary: Cry Outloud Beauty to Clear the Modern Mind
Review: This is one of the most stunning lovely books I've ever read--I did not read it in 9th grade, I read it my first time as an Assistant Professor of English at a college in California. It was the favorite book of so many of my friends I decided to turn aside from the more "adult," intellectual work I'd been doing and check in on Scout and Atticus. What I found absorbed me entirely, and although it is sweeter and simpler in its characterizations of our human but Capra-esque heroes, it is also about continuing ugliness in the racially conflicted world we live in. E.g., Capra, with punch. It provides remarkable messages about how to be human, how to embrace what's right even when it will result in some kind of disaster--and it's wonderfully written. I love this book. Reading it was like finding a really good new friend--
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Summary: Books like this are why I love literature.
Review: The first time I read TKAM (as I abbreviated it in my diary), I didn't find myself intrigued at all by it. It seemed oddly distant and uninteresting -- but at the same time, there were little moments in it that got under my skin and refused to leave. It wasn't until almost twenty years later that I re-read the book again, without prejudice, and with a clearer mind -- and rediscovered my old dictum: It is not the book, but the reader, that must change.The story's relatively uncomplicated: a young girl and her older brother growing up in the Depression-gripped Deep South. Around them is the whirl of personalities and lives that make up their town, but expressed in a way that seemes photographically realistic instead of fanciful or mythopoetically exaggerated. The book has the ring of truth on so many levels -- didn't YOU have a house in your neighborhood that no one else wanted to come near? -- that it was just impossible to ignore. And the final five pages alone canonize the book all by themselves: when Boo Radley whispers, "Will you take me home?" I felt tears come to my eyes the way they hadn't in ages. All the more heartbreaking when you learn that Harper Lee never wrote another novel after this one -- but strangely appropriate, too, because I gather she had gotten it perfectly the first time. No crime in that, I guess. With a book of this stature I'm prepared to forgive almost anything.
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Summary: Every one should have a father like Atticus
Review: All the reviewers who gave this movie less than 3 stars said they had to read it for English or said they "Made us read it for English". When will these people learn, you read books in English. Books like To Kill A Mokingbird are classics. This is a great book. You pepple who "had to read it for English" open your minds and enjoy. If they had fathers more likse Atticus they would be able to enjoy reading a bit more.
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Summary: An excellently written novel that flows naturally.
Review: Like the child in "The Emperor's New Clothes", nine year old Scout Finch, together with her four years older brother Jem, point out the emptiness of pretentious upper class white folks. The southern setting in Alabama in the 1930s takes nothing away from its current applicability. Race and class consciousness, narrated through the eyes of a young girl growing up, shows the depth of the cultural conflict as it persists today. The adult world surrounding Scout and Jem Finch in their little town presents race and class conflicts of contemporary American society in a nutshell. Narration, setting, character casting, and plot work very well together, blending into an excellently written novel by a charismatic female writer.
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Summary: Quality Reading
Review: Granted, this book is required reading for many ninth grade english classes (I know it was for me), which could make kids not like it. But, even at 13, when I first read it, I fell in love with it because it made me think. As I got older, I started to realize the very deep nature of the kind of person Atticus was and the values he was teaching his children in the deep south. I can't help but admire Atticus deeply for the man he is and what he wants his children to be. The racism in this book is overwhelmingly powerful and strives to show the injustices that was and still are a large part of this nation. It doesn't promote it; it makes us aware. For all those ninth graders out there who read this book by command of a teacher, pick it up again in a couple years and then tell me if it was deep or lacking in the american classic ability. You might be surprised by what you find.
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Summary: A story of growing up in a time where racism sways.
Review: I think this book accurately portrayed the struggles of colored people, while it deals with life as a child. The main character nicknamed Scout asks many questions about the things around her and reveals the hearts of many people in her neighborhood with her inoccence. The social class system of the South in the late 1920's and early 1930's is shown as well. Where from lowest to highest there are blacks, poor white trash, and whites. This book has a great court trial where a black man is accused of raping a white girl. Also in Scouts life there is a scary neighbor that is said to have stabbed someone with scissors.
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Summary: A literary miracle
Review: For those who believe that one book can change an entire life, but that have not found that book yet... In To Kill a Mockingbird pure emotions, pure thoughts get together to changes the way you look at everything surrounding you. It teaches to love and to understand.
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Summary: GREATEST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ!
Review: Without question, this book is by far the best book I have ever read. It captures the soul and describes with amazing grace, human existence in 20th century America (or for that matter America)...Best book I have ever read--best writing I have seen in all of my years.
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Summary: The most AWESOME book
Review: This was one of the best books I have ever read...If you haven't read it yet, you're really missing out on something good. I especially love the innocence of Scout as she is retelling the story of her childhood, and the real insight this book gives into human nature. Harper Lee is truly one of the most brilliant writers of all time! (jane austen is the other one!)
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Summary: It doesn't get any better then this
Review: I read quite alot, and in all my findings I have never found anything that matched the standards I set myself up to after To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee was a writing genius. If you haven't read this book, buy it right now! If you don't own this book, you should buy it right now! It takes you on a tour of all your emotions, it sets you into making new standards for living, and all in all it gave you good reading time. Hurry, hurry, hurry! Every moment spent waiting to read this book is..well, not wasted, but pretty darn close. one of the best books ever written.
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