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Even before the press surrounding the recent release of its long-lost “sequel,” GO SET A WATCHMAN, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is one of those books that has been part of America’s collective consciousness since it was first published in 1960. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961, was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film, and in a 2008 survey conducted by Renaissance Learning, was found to be the most widely read book of students between 9th and 12th grades.
Although its candid explorations of race, childhood innocence and courage in the face of injustice has given this seminal book serious staying power, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is not free from being challenged in schools and libraries.
Below, YA author Courtney Sheinmel (EDGEWATER) and Teen Board member Kate F. talk about what this legendary work means to them on a personal level and how they’d respond to those who want to ban it.
Do you remember when you read this book for the first time? How old were you? Did you read it for school or for pleasure?
Courtney Sheinmel:I read TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD for the first time in Ms. Jewett’s seventh grade English class, and within a couple chapters, it became my favorite book I’d ever read for school. This was before I’d read THE GOOD SOLDIER, or A HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE, or BELOVED. But still, today, MOCKINGBIRD remains my very favorite, and one of the most important books I’ve ever read. In the years since, I have read it several other times, just for myself.
Kate F.:I read this book for the first time in my freshman year of high school when I was 15. It was assigned to my literature class as a project.
What do you like about this book, and how would you persuade somebody else to read it?
CS: Some pretty heartbreaking things happen in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, but what I love best are Harper Lee’s thoughts on goodness. I teach a writing seminar to teens once a week at a non-profit in NYC called Writopia Lab (www.writopialaborg), and one of the things that I have told my students time and again is that it’s important to remember people are complicated, and that authentic, believable characters are neither all bad nor all good. I believe the exception to that rule is Atticus Finch, father of the book’s narrator. He is utterly believable, and his goodness is through-and-through. Atticus is a widower who is fiercely devoted to his children. He explains you can’t really understand a person “until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” At night he teaches young Scout to read. By day he is a lawyer who takes on cases others won’t. And to top it all off, he’s the surest shot in Maycomb County. Atticus is a realist, and yet I think he taught some of the greatest lessons of hope that I’ve learned from reading fiction.
As writer, I aspire to create things that will stay with my readers after the last page. I turned the last page of this book about 26 years ago, and the way the book made me think and feel has stayed in my mind since.
KF: I absolutely adore this novel because of the candor of the characters. Scout, our protagonist, says it like it is and I love that quality. Also, Scout’s father, Atticus Finch, is a character I deeply admire because of his calm, collected, determined nature and because he did not let anyone influence his decisions in the novel. If I had to persuade someone else to read it, I would simply tell them TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD focuses on strong characters who will make you strive to be a better person.
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD was challenged at the Brentwood, TN Middle School because the book contains “profanity”; contains “adult themes such as sexual intercourse, rape, and incest”; and uses racial slurs, which promote “racial hatred, racial division [and] racial separation.” If you had the chance to respond to that quote, what would you say?
CS:I would say talking about “adult themes,” such as rape and racism, is not the same of endorsing them. My sister remembers reading the book in school and her teacher acknowledged off the bat that there were words in the book that one shouldn’t use, but nevertheless, they existed in the real world. Reading about them gave a context for what words hurt, and why.
Things have changed in the years since the Great Depression, when TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD takes place, but one only needs to turn on the television to see racism and violence are still rampant. It is books like Harper Lee’s classic that give us a way in to dialogue. To talk about who we are, where we’ve come from and who we want to be. I am not a parent, but I’m a godmother and an aunt of kids ranging in age from eight to twenty, and MOCKINGBIRD is exactly the kind of book I want the children I love to be reading. And when they do, I want to talk about it with them.
KF:In response to the first quote pointing out the “profanity” and “adult themes,” I would tell them that TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD portrays these topics as they are in real life. Yes, they are ugly and wrong and not a pleasant thing to read about, but they are an integral part of the novel because this is the way things were and are today. As for the second quote regarding racial slurs, I would argue that this novel does not promote those themes at all. I would instead say that the “racial hatred, racial division [and] racial separation” are a part of our history as Americans and we cannot afford to forget that history out of shame. We have to remember it and we have to educate our children about the past because if we forget the past and the mistakes in it, we are at risk of repeating these crimes again.
You need to give the protagonist of this book a book recommendation. What would you recommend, and why?
CS: Scout Finch is a first grader, and so I’d probably recommend the books I loved when I was young, most of which were authored by Judy Blume. But since Scout reads at such a high level, I’d move beyond FRECKLE JUICE and THE ONE IN THE MIDDLE IS THE GREEN KANGAROO, and give her ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET and IGGIE’S HOUSE and JUST AS LONG AS WE’RE TOGETHER and my personal favorite, STARRING SALLY J. FREEDMAN AS HERSELF. Those books made me feel less alone and helped shape the way I saw the world.
KF: I would recommend that Scout read A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC by V.E. Schwab. First, I think Scout would love the character Delilah Bard because she is smart, cunning and adventurous. Also, I think Scout would admire the main protagonist, Kell, for his moral integrity, which is much like her father’s. Lastly, I would recommend this novel to Scout because I believe she would love the adventurous plot line.
