Book I'm Happiest to Have Finally Read This Year
To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
(Harper Perennial, 2002)
Of all the books I had to read this fall to keep up with my middle and high school students, To Kill a Mockingbird was by far the greatest pleasure I had this semester. I'm not sure if I would have appreciated this book nearly as much if I had read it in high school like 99% of the rest of the American population, but I sure do appreciate it now. Last spring, around the time Ron Rash's Serena came out, there was some blog chatter about strong female characters in American literature. Well, Scout is at the top of my list. Why can't we have more Scouts, older Scouts in American literature? A female character not willing to follow any man or woman without severe skepticism and great irony. New Years resolution -- find another female character in American literature that matches Scout. I'm on a mission. Here's one of my favorite Scout moments:
"Jem condescended to take me to school the first day, a job usually done by one's parents, but Atticus had said Jem would be delighted to show me where my room was. I think some money changed hands in this transaction, for as we trotted around the corner past the Radley Place I heard an unfamiliar jingle in Jem's pockets. When we slowed to a walk at the edge of the schoolyard, Jem was careful to explain that during school hours I was not to bother him, I was not to approach him with requests to enact a chapter of Tarzan and the Ant Men, to embarrass him with references to his private life, or tag along behind him at recess and noon. I was to stick with the first grade and he would stick with the fifth. In short, I was to leave him alone.
"You mean we can't play any more?" I asked.
"We'll do like we always do at home," he said, "but you'll see -- school's different."
It certainly was. Before the first morning was over, Miss Caroline Fisher, our teacher hauled me up to the front of the room and patted the palm of my hand with a ruler, then made me stand in the corner until noon."