Readers' Review: "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-06-16/readers-review-kill-mockingbird-harper-lee
To mark the 50th anniversary of "To Kill a Mockingbird," Diane invites listeners to join a discussion of Harper Lee's Pulitzer prize-winning novel. It explores racial injustice and loss of innocence in a small Southern town. Librarians voted it the best novel of the 20th century.
Guests
Michele Norris
host of NPR's All Things Considered and author of "The Grace of Silence"
Mary McDonagh Murphy
independent documentary director and writer, author of "Scout, Atticus & Boo."
Alex Heard
editorial director of Outside magazine and author of "The Eyes of Willie McGee" and "Apocalypse Pretty Soon."
Comments
Please familiarize yourself with our Code of Conduct and Terms of Use before posting your comments.
Not knowing of its anniversary, I recently began reading "To Kill a Mockingbird," because it was suggested by the brilliant Stephen King, and I was coaxed into finishing it (just last night) because of the wonderful Diane Rehm. This is a great coincidence. I loved it. It is a very powerful, contemporary story that puts humanity to the test. Now, I wish I had read the book first, although the film has always been one of my favorites. It just goes to show you what an amazing storyteller there is in Harper Lee. With some changes between movie and book, Lee's dialogue and overall story, were not altered, thankfully -- showing her true genius and rarity.
I was able to attend an exhibition here at the Freedom Center in Cincinnati. The exhibit, 'Without Sanctuary,' was a display of lynching photography and reminded me of the years I taught Harper Lee's classic in my English classes here. 'To Kill a Mockingbird' provided a voice to all those who suffered the injustices for so many years.
As a young child living in apartheid South Africa, I saw and felt racism viscerally. When we moved to the U.S. in the late 1960's, I proudly announced that we didn't have apartheid in our country. I'll never forget my mother's words: "Oh, yes, we do. We just don't call it that."
The force of her words and the book TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD continue to inspire my writing.
Kathryn Erskine
Author, MOCKINGBIRD (Penguin 2010)
I read the book for the first time as an adult. Always having lived, and having several generations of my family living in the northern free states, we did not have that level of open racism. It opened my eyes to a part of humanity I really didn't want to acknowledge. I read the book to my children when they were really too young to understand parts of it and balked at the term 'Rutting on my Mayella' but felt the resultant explanation that would be needed was worth it for them to understand what people are capable of doing to those they feel superior to and how they will act when that assured state of life is threatened.
The play is performed each spring in Monroeville by a very talented group of local actors in the actual courthouse that Nelle Harper Lee's dad practiced.
Tickets are limited, to say the least.
These amateurs have performed the play at the Kennedy Center and overseas.
Jurors are chosen from the audience & I was fortunate to serve.
Buz Livingston, Blue Mt Beach FL
How did it happen that Harper Lee wrote ONE magnificent book? I am not questioning her authorship in any way. I am wondering about her history, character development, and experimentation with writing.
A book written by my grandfather, Robert F. Schulkers, is mentioned twice in To Kill A Mockingbird -- most prominantly at the end of the novel when Atticus is reading to Jem from "The Grey Ghost" after Jem has broken his arm (or was it his leg?) It was one of a series of "Seckatary Hawkins" books my grandfather wrote about a group of boys and their adventures along the riverfront. My grandfather, who grew up in Northern Kentucky and lived in Cincinnati, OH, was flattered that this book figured in Ms. Lee's novel -- an earlier reference involves a bet in which Dill offers TWO Grey Ghosts against ONE other book in making a dare related to Boo Radley. He attempted to contact Harper Lee to thank her for including the book in such an important novel, but never received an answer from Ms. Lee. I've always wanted to know more about who she was and why she wrote the book to try and understand this family connection to To Kill A Mockingbird. Can't wait to read Ms. Norris' book!
Thank you for the program, Diane.
I have never read this book because of the difficulty I experienced in life as a young dark skinned African American child in Amarillo, Texas. I am now 37 and will be adventurous and read this book because it is expected for my daughter to read going into the 7th grade. I hear the title and I remember the racial events that I witnessed and could not understand why we were hated for our status in life.
It would be interesting to hear an African Americans view of reading this book after growing up in the South during such events.
Thank you all for reviewing this book.
I agree with everything Ms. Norris said about the viewpoint of African Americans. That's how I felt after reading the book for the first time. Where are my people in this book? After reading Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, I felt as if Mildred Taylor's Cassie answered the question. That is also a wonderful book.
I teach the book to eighth graders, and it's frustrating for me that Scout can't make Calpurnia and Tom's lives more vivid. What are they like when they're at home? But it is also my chance to teach the literary technique of point of view. Scout is unable to say more because she can't narrate what she does not see.
Mr. Ewell didn't actually fall on his own knife -- Malcolm Gladwell knows it; we all know it! I suspect that Mr. Gladwell is uncomfortable with the notion that justice was perfectly served in the story because it wasn't. The genius of the novel is that the author was able to convey the uncomfortable truth of the ending of the book, namely, that Boo Radley saved the children, but probably stabbed Mr. Ewell to do so. The fact that the adults brushed the truth under the rug because it spared Boo Radley the scrutiny he would have had to face, and the fact that Mr. Ewell "deserved" his fate illustrates the contradictions most people struggle with when they are trying to live a moral and just life. Just as Atticus Finch used the law to find justice for his falsely accused client, he was willing to look the other way when the bad guy got stabbed....A brilliant ending that left just enough discomfort in your gut to keep you thinking about morality for a long time after finishing the book
The basic story line from Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird" bears a remarkable similarity to William Faulkner's "Intruder in the Dust" written a generation earlier. Lee got a Pulitzer, doesn't Faulkner at least deserve a little more attention? Could this "extreme similarity" help explain why she never wrote another book?
How many times was a black man in custody killed "while trying to escape"? He would have been shot allright but not because he was escaping. I love the story but I am a little skeptical that there was a sheriff's dept like the one described in the book. I still love the book and will continue to watch the movie over and over.
I believe everything there is to know about life and how to behave is in this book. Boo Radley is my favorite character. My tribute to him is the "Boo Hole" I have created in our garden where the neighborhood children come to find treasures. Unlike the book, if they take something from the Boo Hole, then they are supposed to put something back for someone else to find. And they do. See www.boohole.com for more stories. It has been a delightful way to share the book and a way for children to learn the immense value of giving for the sake of giving without knowing who the recipient is. marshag@carolina.rr.com
Hello, my name is Kate Parker. I'm with Handley Regional Library.
Our community is reading To Kill a Mockingbird as our book selection for 2010 One Book One Community. Our community includes Winchester, Frederick County, and Clarke County, Virginia. We announced the book May 12 at Josephine School Community Museum, a black school built in 1882. We have many activities planned during the summer & fall, including a panel discussion we're calling "Healing American's Original Sin: Moral Guidance from To Kill a Mockingbird." We also have a dramatic reading planned for the trial. Our final event in Oct. features Mary Badham, the woman who played Scout in the movie, to talk to us at our Alamo Drafthouse Cinema & introduce the movie after a reception.
Our Community Partners include people representing 3 school systems, a private school, local library system, local area NAACP, the local newspaper, local community college, private university, an organization Coalition for Racial Unity, & a local independent book store.
We are getting a tremendous response. It seems it's everyone's favorite book. Integration took place here in Winchester, Virginia, in 1966. We felt it was time to choose this book for our community read. It's meaningful to get to talk with everyone about this book and these subjects. I've read the book at least three times since it came out in 1960, and it has meant different things at different ages for me. I keep finding more gems in this book. Anyone interested in joining us should write to mockingbird@hrl.lib.state.va.us
Thank you for a very interesting program today.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a love story. As Scout evolves, she learns to love Boo, who shows his love for the children throughout the novel when he leaves mementos in the tree, covers Scout with a blanket during Miss Maudie's fire, and saves their lives. As a former English teacher who had taught this novel for many years, I am reminded of a parting note from a student who wrote to me, "I used to hate reading until I read To Kill a Mockingbird. Thank you." And so I must say, "Thank YOU, Harper Lee."
I listened to all I could of this program today before I was forced to turn off the radio for an appointment. I'm glad to have the podcast as this is a topic near and dear to me. I've read this book several times over the course of my life and revisited it when our eldest daughter was assigned it during middle school. As it turned out, that same year our youngest was cast as Scout in a community theatre production so it became a family project.
Not only did we have an amazing experience together watching her perform, but her love of theater blossomed from having this role. She has been blessed to perform in a variety of professional and other productions over the past few years and now is a student at a local youth performing arts high school. Being Scout changed her life.
Thank you for a wonderful hour.
I have read this book every year since I was 13. It changes each time, and the characters have become friends and role models. The joy I had when I was able to share this book with students of my own in indescribable. Thank you for offering such a wonderful array of panelists to give their responses.
Diane--
Here in Boston, Tom Ashbrook's "On Point" occupies the 10am-to-noon time slot on our NPR station; but I've found your show on the Web, and can only wish that we in New England could hear you "live."
Having heard you moderate your show, I could not but wonder about That Voice of yours; and so I researched and can only congratulate you on your courage.
But I must also wonder-- never having heard your voice BEFORE-- if the requirements of stating your ideas in only a few breaths has made your commentary STRONGER. You waste not one syllable when you speak, and all of us can feel the sheer EFFORT behind each utterance. We thus hang on your every word, hoping that each succeeding word will repay our attention-- and they do, each and every one!
Thank you, thank you for your OUTRAGE. And especially I thank you for honoring each of your callers (I especially love how you acknowledge your callers' viewpoints when your guest don't pay them the respect YOU offer).
You are a national treasure. Thank you, so much, for holding on.
Bill Hubbard