Read and reviewed in February, 2015, keeping for my personal collection
I rarely buy a new book, but I bought this one at Books-a-Million yesterday, Monday Feb. 16. I also pre-ordered Go Set a Watchman, the recently discovered manuscript by the same author, Harper Lee.
I thought I had read it years ago, but I didn't remember anything as I read it this time. I have seen the movie, so I recognized the characters and some of the plot from that. I don't know how I missed reading it, but apparently I did. So, I am all the more grateful that I decided to buy this one now.
A wonderful book of childhood in small town 1930s America.
Brother and sister Jem and Scout Finch live what seems an idyllic life with their widowed attorney father and their maid/housekeeper/surrogate mother until the summer that their father takes on a very controversial trial, defending an innocent African American man against all odds.
Other characters featured in this story are the children's friend Dill who comes every summer to visit his aunt, the Finches next door neighbor, and Boo Radley,
their reclusive, possibly mentally challenged neighbor down the block.
This is a classic in American literature, required reading for most high schools and many lower grades as well. (I graduated not many years after it was first published, so it hadn't yet made the required reading list in my time.) Its reputation is well deserved; it is wonderfully written, and the characters are drawn with precision. A delightful book, it kept me interested from beginning to end. I am looking forward to Go Set a Watchman, which is to feature Scout as a young woman.
