"When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.... When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident. I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that. He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out."

Set in the small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Depression, To Kill a Mockingbird follows three years in the life of 8-year-old Scout Finch, her brother, Jem, and their father, Atticus--three years punctuated by the arrest and eventual trial of a young black man accused of raping a white woman. Though her story explores big themes, Harper Lee chooses to tell it through the eyes of a child. The result is a tough and tender novel of race, class, justice, and the pain of growing up.

Like the slow-moving occupants of her fictional town, Lee takes her time getting to the heart of her tale; we first meet the Finches the summer before Scout's first year at school. She, her brother, and Dill Harris, a boy who spends the summers with his aunt in Maycomb, while away the hours reenacting scenes from Dracula and plotting ways to get a peek at the town bogeyman, Boo Radley. At first the circumstances surrounding the alleged rape of Mayella Ewell, the daughter of a drunk and violent white farmer, barely penetrate the children's consciousness. Then Atticus is called on to defend the accused, Tom Robinson, and soon Scout and Jem find themselves caught up in events beyond their understanding. During the trial, the town exhibits its ugly side, but Lee offers plenty of counterbalance as well--in the struggle of an elderly woman to overcome her morphine habit before she dies; in the heroism of Atticus Finch, standing up for what he knows is right; and finally in Scout's hard-won understanding that most people are essentially kind "when you really see them." By turns funny, wise, and heartbreaking, To Kill a Mockingbird is one classic that continues to speak to new generations, and deserves to be reread often. --Alix Wilber

From Library Journal
Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning first (and last) novel of racial injustice in a small Southern town ranks among just about everyone's favorite books. This 35th-anniversary edition contains a brief new foreword by the elusive Lee. (LJ Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Vogue
That rare literary phenomenon, a Southern novel with no mildew on its magnolia leaves. Funny, happy and written with unspectacular precision, To Kill a Mockingbird is about conscience - how it is instilled in two children, Scout and Jem Finch; how it operates in their father, Atticus, a lawyer appointed to defend a Negro on a rape charge; and how conscience grows in their small Alabama town.

From AudioFile
Roses Prichard's masterful narration of Lee's classic novel, originally produced for Books on Tape in 1991, has been repackaged by Audio Partners for the consumer market. Prichard's skill and talents are evident; all the characters sound true and absolutely real. Listeners hear Scout's developing wisdom and maturity as the story progresses. Prichard achieves the monumental task of creating--and maintaining--authentic voices for a diverse group of characters while infusing the story with emotional resonance. This stunning production captures the listener and doesn't let go. M.A.M. An AUDIOFILE Earphones Award winner (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Marilyn Meyer
In 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird won the Pulitzer prize; thirty years later shopping malls may have replaced the main street of Maycomb, Alabama, but not even thirty years of Civil Rights laws or the gentrification of ante-bellum estates render this book an anachronism. Harper Lee combines two of the most common themes of Southern writing - a child's recollection of life among eccentrics in a small town seemingly untouched by the twentieth century and the glaring injustice of racial prejudice - to create a contemporary American classic. To Kill a Mockingbird has two main threads which carry the plot. The first involves the role of Atticus Finch, who is appointed to defend a shy black man accused of raping the oldest daughter of the town's least respected citizen. The second is the mythology arising out of the reclusive Boo Radley, about whom it was said "when people's azaleas froze in a cold snap, it was because he had breathed on them." But what saves the novel from cliche are the irreverent perceptions of the story's narrator, Atticus Finch's nine-year-old daughter Scout, who depicts mean racist aspects of Southern life as well as humorous and quite often satirical vignettes. To Kill a Mockingbird only gets better with rereading; each time the streets of Maycomb become more real and alive, each time Scout is more insightful, Atticus more heroic, and Boo Radley more tragically human. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14.

ANNOTATION

Winner of the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Literature, Fiction.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has earned many distinctions since its original publication in 1960. It won the Pulitzer Prize, has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than thirty million copies worldwide, and been made into an enormously popular movie. Most recently, librarians across the country gave the book the highest of honors by voting it the best novel of the twentieth century.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING