About the Author:
Harper Lee
Lee's first and only novel, To Kill a Mockingbird was published during the Civil Rights movement, and was hailed as an exposé of Southern racist society. Leading Lee to win numerous honors and awards, including 1960 Pulitzer Prize and Presidential Medal of Freedom of the United States for her contribution to literature in 2007.
About the Book:
As the book celebrates the 50th anniversary in July 2010, it continues to be enormously popular among readers and remains one of the best I have read. Narrated by a 6 year old girl - Scout Fitch, the story reflects innocence against a very serious back drop of racism. In 1950's a black man in a southern state of America is falsely accused of raping a white girl. Atticus her widowed father is appointed as the defense attorney. Scout and Jem, her elder brother, witness the unjust consequences of prejudice and hate while at the same time witnessing the values of courage and integrity through their father's example.
Apparently there are many autobiographical parallels:
The character of Atticus Finch, Scout's father, was based on Lee's own father, a liberal Alabama lawyer and statesman who frequently defended African Americans within the racially prejudiced Southern legal system.
Lee, the tomboy (Scout) is the daughter of a respected small-town Alabama attorney. Scout's friend Dill was inspired by Lee's childhood friend and neighbor, Truman Capote
Quotes I like:
Atticus tells his girl…. "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."
Atticus tells his children the reason he choose to take this difficult and unpopular case…."They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."
"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."
"It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived."
Other things I liked in the book:
I really like the father - children bond and the understanding they have irrespective of the age gap and the mutual respect they share. Specially the relation between the father and daughter. Scout always learn a lot from her father, just laying in his lap while he read the newspaper, sometimes aloud for her and you are amazed how much a child learns by observing an adult. She definitely has a unconventional take on certain things much like her father, and both are subjected to objection and criticism from others.
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