Cry about the simple hell people give other Share the To Kill A Mockingbird experience people - without even thinking. Cry about the with younger readers with these books which hell white people give colored folks, without even explore similar themes - To Kill a stopping to think that they're people, too. (Chapter 20) In Young Adult Fiction by Author The $66 Summer , by John Armistead Mockingbird Historical Context Burning Up , by Caroline B. Cooney In the book, Scout is the same age as Harper Suggestions for Mississippi Trial, 1955 , by Chris Crowe Further Reading Lee was in the early 1930’s, during the trial of Dangerous Skies , by Suzanne Staples the “Scottsboro Boys.” This case and that of available through the Let the Circle Be Unbroken , by Mildred Taylor Jefferson-Madison Regional Library Emmett Till both display prevalent Southern Sonny’s House of Spies , by George Ella Lyon attitudes about race during this time period. Spite Fences , by Trudy Krisher www.jmrl.org Scottsboro In Juvenile Fiction by Author You never really understand a person The Scottsboro Boys , by James Haskins Sounder , by William Armstrong Stories of Scottsboro , by James Goodman From Miss Ida’s Porch , by Sandra Belton until you consider things from his point The Watsons go to Birmingham, 1963 , by C.P. Curtis of view…Until you climb inside of his skin and Emmet Till walk around in it." Death of Innocence by Mamie Till-Mobley & Francie , by Karen English Darby , by Jonathon Scott Fuqua (Chapter 3) Christopher Benson My Louisiana Sky , by Kimberly Willis Holt The Murder of Emmett Till (on DVD) Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry , by Mildred D. Taylor Getting Away with Murder: the True Story of Dovey Coe, by Francis O’Rourke Dowell the Emmett Till Case , by Chris Crowe Ways to experience the story of To Kill a The Lynching of Emmett Till, a Documentary Mockingbird : Narrative , ed. by Christopher Metness Literary Allusions The novel’s main character Scout is extremely well- • Read it: We have copies of the novel in the More about the time period and Civil Rights: read for a first grader, which causes her teacher much Adult and Young Adult fiction sections. We Alabama: a History , by Virginia Van der Veer consternation. also have the book in Spanish translation. Hamilton. • She alludes to Mr. Jingle from The Pickwick Papers • Listen to it: We have audio versions on Eyes on the prize : America's Civil Rights Years, by Charles Dickens during Mayella Ewell’s tape and CD. 1954-1965 by Juan Williams testimony at the trial and Bulfinch’s Mythology. • Watch it : We have the movie on DVD and Or browse in nonfiction 323 for more Civil • Jem, Scout & Dill act out stories from Tarzan by video. Rights material . Edgar Rice Burroughs, the Rover Boys by Victor For more information on the novel as Appleton, Tom Swift books, and books by Oliver Optic. literature, try Readings on To Kill a Mockingbird. • Jem reads Ivanhoe to Mrs. DuBose. edited by Terry O’Neill The Movie • Scout learns to write by copying passages from the The movie To Kill a Mockingbird was Bible . And Calpurnia teaches her son Zeebo to released just a year after the book read from Blackstone’s Commentaries. What’s in a name? came out. Gregory Peck played Harper Lee chose the name of Atticus after Atticus Finch and won the Oscar for J-MRL is partnering with the Virginia Foundation Titus Pomponius Atticus, a friend of the Best Actor in 1962. Learn more in Center for the Book in The BIG READ, which is Roman orator Cicero who was renowned, Gregory Peck : a charmed life by Lynn an initiative of the National Endowment for the as Lee said, as “a wise, learned, & humane man.” Haney. The film was nominated for Arts, the Institute of Museum and Library Finch was one of Lee’s mother’s names. Best Picture but lost to Lawrence of Arabia , which is Services, and Arts Midwest. (So was Cunningham!) also available at the library. MD/JMRL - March 2008 About the Author You might also enjoy reading these novels: Or these Novels dealing with Race & Identity dealing with Civil Rights & Justice … in Rural or Small-Town Southern Settings was born Clover , by Dori Sanders - Interracial marriage in the Nelle Harper Lee Blood on the Leaves , by Jeff Stetson - An African April 28, 1926 and won the rural south of today is seen through the eyes of American prosecutor in Jackson, Miss. finds himself Pulitzer Prize in 1960 for To Kill a 10-year-old Clover who is raised by a white step- prosecuting a civil rights leader accused of killing Mockingbird - her only major mom despite protests from relatives. whites that were acquitted of hate crimes. work to date. She was awarded My Last Days as Roy Rogers , by Pat Cunningham Fire in the Rock , by Joe Martin - Set in the South in the the Presidential Medal of Devoto - Growing up in Alabama in the 1950s, 1950s, four friends find their lives changed forever Freedom in 2007 for her two inseparable 10-year-old girls, one black and when a carefree summer takes a violent turn. one white, discover the theft of money meant for contribution to literature. Justice for None , by Gene Hackman and Daniel Lenihan - polio victims and expose a racial injustice. Other past winners of the medal of freedom for On the run from the law after being falsely accused The Secret Life of Bees , by Sue Monk Kidd - After literature have been Carl Sandburg, Ralph Ellison, of murder, a troubled WWI veteran joins forces her “stand-in mother” insults the three biggest John Steinbeck, and Tennessee Williams. with an African American who has also been racists in town, Lily Owens and bold, black wrongly accused. Rosaleen escape to Tiburon, South Carolina where Learn more about Harper Lee in the biography by A Lesson Before Dying , by Ernest Gaines - In 1948 they are taken in by bee-keeping sisters. Charles Shields: Mockingbird: a portrait of Harper Louisiana, a young teacher, asked to impart his Meridian , by Alice Walker Lee. pride and learning to a young black man awaiting Strange Fruit , by Lillian Smith execution, comes face to face with his own The Angels of Morgan Hill , by Donna Vanliere Harper Lee was childhood friends with the writer cynicism and hopelessness. Similar Coming-of-Age Novels and accompanied him to Truman Capote Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine , by Bebe Moore Campbell - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn , by Betty Smith Kansas while he researched his A racist beating in a small Mississippi town ripples Annie Dunne , by Sebastian Barry book In Cold Blood. The through generations, changing the lives of everyone Montana 1948 , by Larry Watson character Dill in To Kill a involved with the incident. Wish You Well , by David Baldacci Mockingbird is said to have been Wolf Whistle , by Lewis Norton inspired by Capote as a child, and If Beale Street Could Talk , by James Baldwin Lee in turn inspired the character Idabel in Capote’s Other Voices, Other Rooms . Try The one place where a man ought to get a Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make also The Complete Stories of Truman Capote , some square deal is in a courtroom, be he music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up of which are autobiographical, or the fictionalized any color of the rainbow. people’s gardens, don’t nest account of Nelle and Truman’s relationship in the (Chapter 23) in corncribs, they don’t do one novel Capote in Kansas by Kim Powers. thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a Lane Cake mockingbird. Stephanie Crawford has been after Miss (Chapter 10) Maudie for her recipe for Lane Cake for Did you know? What do you think? thirty years. Lane Cake, a white or yellow Thomas Jefferson kept pet mockingbirds while at the Harper Lee loved 19th-century layer cake covered with coconut, nuts and White House and at Monticello. One favorite, whom British authors best, and once said dried fruits, is said to have originated in Jefferson named Dick, rode around on his shoulder. that her ambition was to become Clayton, Alabama, when its creator, Emma Rylander Lane, “the Jane Austen of Southern Mockingbirds in the United States are of the won a prize for it in the state fair in the 1890’s. For a recipes species Mimus polyglottos and are known for mimicking Alabama.” for this type of cake and other delicacies that the bridge other birds’ songs. If you want to know more, try ladies might have enjoyed, look in non-fiction 641.5975 for Know your Bird Sounds: Songs and Calls of Yard, Garden, What do you think of the cookbooks with Southern recipes. Edna Lewis’ Gift of and City Birds , by Lang Elliott comparison? Southern Cooking has a recipe for Lane Cake. Or try field guides to North American birds in nonfiction under 598.2 .