Curl Up With a Great Book

We are also starting To Kill A Mockingbird today, and I'll be handing out a reading schedule so that you can know ahead of each class exactly what chapters we'll be discussing. This might enable those of you with busy schedules to plan ahead! You might be curious about the title of the book, so in case you are wondering what a mockingbird looks like, this is a picture of one.

Rest up. We're starting my favorite book. It's important to understand that this is historical fiction; it reads like a true story. It tell us so much about the setting. I can't imagine growing up in times like those described: not enough food to feed families, issues of gender and race, jobs at a minimum, loss of hope and fear in the atmosphere. All the same, the world seems a simple place as described by Scout, and even through all the hard times, the picture she paints of childhood and innocence is appealing.

As I am rereading, I am thinking about impressions I first had as I read the first few chapters. The way our narrator sees the world, she seems so grown up for such a small child. It must be her relationship with her father, which seems more adult somehow. Reading the newspaper over Atticus's shoulder, trying to explain the Cunninghams' ways to Miss Caroline, Scout seems wiser than her years.

What rich and wonderful narrative Mockingbird offers. Don't be discouraged if you find an inordinate number of words to decipher. Scout is a wise woman and precocious child. Somehow Harper Lee's simple way of capturing small town Southern life in the Great Depression has a powerful message for us all.