1. To Kill a Mockingbird: An Introduction

2. One of the most influential novels in American history.
Rated, after the Bible, as one book “most often cited as making a difference” in people’s lives
Considered the one book “every adult should read before they die” by British librarians
Voted the “Best Novel of the 20th century” by readers of the Library Journal
Ranked fifth on the Modern Library’s Reader’s List of the 100 Best Novels in the English language since 1900

3. So what’s so special about To Kill a Mockingbird?

4. “Literature helps us to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own.” ~ C.S. Lewis

5. “The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think.” ~James McCosh

6. Reading---and thinking---requires careful attention to detail

7. Pay careful attention to the butterfly in the following picture:
What is it flying to?
What color is it?

9. Pay careful attention to the woman in the following picture:
Is her eye open or closed?
What color is her lipstick?

11. . . . see things differently.
You can learn to
. . . see things differently.

12. The Author Nelle Harper Lee, 34 year-old woman
Born (1926) and raised in Monroeville, AL
Daughter of Amasa Lee, a small-town lawyer and widower
Law school drop out, 1949
Childhood friend of author Truman Capote

13. The Setting
Maycomb, Alabama,
1930s
Great Depression

14. small-town Alabama, 1930s

15. Courthouse Monroeville, Alabama

16. An Alabama Sharecropper’s Home, 1936

17. African American church in Alabama in the 1930s

18. Novel based on Famous Court Case: The Scottsboro Boys 1931-1937
Nine African American teenagers falsely accused of rape. The investigations and trials lasted 6 years.

19. A white lawyer, Sam Leibowitz, defended the accused boys
A white lawyer, Sam Leibowitz, defended the accused boys. They were found guilty, all were hung, although no evidence could convict them.

20. Book: - published in 1960 - When she is writing it, it was the 1950s
Book: - published in When she is writing it, it was the 1950s. What was going on?

21. Southern states opposed school integration

22. May 1954: Supreme Court Orders School Integration

23. August 1955: A 14 year-old Chicago boy, Emmett Till,
is murdered in Mississippi.

24. Till’s killers are tried for murder
and are declared “not guilty” by an all-white jury.

25. The Characters Narrator: Scout Finch, six-year-old girl
Atticus Finch, Scout’s father, widower, & small-town lawyer
Jem Finch, Scout’s older brother
Dill Harris, strange, pint-sized summer neighbor
‘Boo’ Radley, mysterious & reclusive neighbor
Tom Robinson, African American man accused of rape
Bob Ewell, poor red-neck racist

26. Atticus teaches Scout an important lesson

27. The Story Set in small-town Alabama in the 1930s Spans three years
Narrated by Scout
3 children learn about life by witnessing the complicated problems facing adults in their small Alabama town.

28. Boo Radley’s house

29. What will To Kill a Mockingbird make you think about?
What can you learn from reading it?

30. “If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” ~Atticus Finch, TKAM, p. 34

31. Whose skin will Scout get to climb into?

32. What kind of people do we need to understand?

33. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy
“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s garden’s, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hears out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” ~Miss Maudie, TKAM, page 94

34. Who will turn out to be the “mockingbirds” in this story?

35. Who was excluded from mainstream American life in the 1930s. The 1950s
Who was excluded from mainstream American life in the 1930s? The 1950s? The 2000s?

36. Who will Scout---and you---learn . . .
to see differently?

37. To learn more about Harper Lee