To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

This book has been on my to-read list for years. I had thought that it would be boring, I am not sure where I got that from.

For reasons that would take too long to explain, I needed something to read and this was the only book available at the time. So, I started reading it and I immediately loved it.

First of all, Harper Lee starts the book with a plea to never put an introduction on her book. I hate introductions! I always skip them because by the time I am half-way through, I am disinterested in the book. So, thanks Harper Lee.

I didn't know the book was told from the point of view of a 9 year old girl, Scout. I knew the basic premise of the book but that was it apparently it. The book is set in a county in Alabama during the 1930s. It tells the story of a girl and her older brother and their journeys together throughout school and summer vacation. Their father, Atticus Finch, is a lawyer. His main case throughout the book is defending a black man who was accused of raping a white woman.

For the most part, his children don't know much about their father's trials. But this one is dividing the town apart and his children feel the effects of it.

The book is also full of mini-lessons, which I suppose is what has made it great.

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...Until you climb inside his skin and walk around in it."

"I like to think there's just one kind of folks. Folks."

"Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I'd have the facts."

“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.”  

Like I said, I absolutely loved it. It was a book I was sad to see end. And it is the only book Harper Lee ever wrote. If anyone else hasn't read the book, do it now.