To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Reading List)

Written in the viewpoint of the two children of Atticus Finch, a lawyer defending an innocent man of color named Tom Robinson who is being prosecuted on a rape and assault of a young white woman  in the 1930’s where town views were not so kind towards those you were not of the ‘same cloth’. The story shows Atticus trying to teach his children against the prejudice of the town’s viewpoint and teach them the morality of their convictions and actions. Even with the loss of the case Atticus still allows his children to observe the brutal honesty of the conviction and death of Tom Robinson and it’s ripple effect it has on the Alabaman town of Maycomb .

To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel that over the years has sold over thirty millions copies and has been read by so many more. Atticus Finch since the books debut in 1960 has been the moral hero of the story and has given them a moral compass to be guided by and given us sense of the moral integrity that we must live by which shows through the way he speaks and acts, his actions follows his words and acts the same no matter where he was and who he was with and he explains this in one simple line to scout “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what”

With the recent news of a sequel ‘Go Set a Watchman’ which is based 20 years after the events of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ has given the story an extra burst of life. I look forward to reading the sequel and to return to the town of May

comb.

To finish I leave you with quote from the book, but it holds true even in today’s world “but sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down...”