Day: June 7, 2026

To start with, I owe a debt of gratitude to the late Ms Harper Lee for two things. The first is for her outstanding book, ” To Kill A Mockingbird” originally published in 1960. This has since become a classic in American literature. I am truly astonished that I had never read this before.

The second (and more meaningful for me personally) is that “Mockingbird” is the first book I have read in months! Not having posted here since March 2026 indicates reading or writing about bookshow age, lethargy, a lack of interest or other factors combined to keep me away from reading books or writing about them. And to think I always was a voracious reader all my life!!

I guess you can put it down to one’s taste, but I have always had a particular liking for books written in the first person. The story in “To Kill A Mockingbird” is spelt out by young Jean Louise “Scout” Finch , a girl growing up in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama. Here she lives with her father Atticus Finch ( a lawyer and a member of the state legislature) and her elder brother, Jeremy “Jem” Finch. Since her mother had passed away when she was just two, Scout has been looked after by Calpurnia, their black cook and housekeeper. Remember this book was published in 1960- before the Civil Rights laws came into being. Terms like blacks, Negroes and worse were freely used then. It’s only in more recent times that it has become politically correct to refer to them as African-Americans. You will know that Alabama was a hard core Southern state where slavery flourished. The book is set in the 1930s. Slavery had long been abolished but there was a major racial divide between the whites and the blacks in these parts of the United States.

The racial divide is brought out in the courtroom when a white girl Mayella Ewell accuses Tom Robinson, a black, of having assaulted and raped her in her house. Atticus Finch defends Robinson to the best of his ability in the court of Judge Taylor. The author weaves a gripping plot moving from the past to the present – recounted often by “Scout” Finch who describes what she sees and hears. She is an exceptionally intelligent young girl, full of questions and eager to find out answers- which are not forthcoming. The book dwells on the different perspectives of both the whites and blacks that feature in the story. The underlying racial prejudices and tensions are written about with great sensitivity. There is a certain charm about the book as events are seen through the eyes of a young girl.

Ms Lee was born and lived in Alabama herself. Much of what she writes about is based on her own experience and observations of life around her. This enabled her to write such graphic descriptions of the characters in the book, such as Calpurnia, Atticus’s sister Alexandra, Mayella Ewell, or their neighbor Miss Maudie Atkinson!

“To Kill A Mockingbird” was awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961. It was made into a highly successful movie in 1962 with Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch and Mary Badham as Jean Louise Finch. It won many awards as well the following year.

I am happy that I read “To Kill A Mockingbird” while I could!! If you have not read it yet, I would urge you to read it as an example of excellent story telling.