To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee, 1960
Historical fiction Literary fictionContemporary fictionYoung adult
A girl watches her small Alabama town put a man on trial, and learns in one long summer how decent people can be cowards. A warm, plain-spoken child's voice carries you through a slow summer of family life, small-town gossip and quiet moral unease.
Feels like nostalgia, tenderness and unease. About family, morality and society.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy slow, observant family stories that turn moral questions over through a child's eyes. The story confronts racism and uses the period's racial language, which some readers may find jarring.
Why read it
It offers a clear-eyed look at conscience and community, and a child's voice that makes large moral questions feel close to home.
A page from the book
Some injuries become the way a childhood gets dated.
When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. Harper Lee.Lee worked as a reservations clerk for Eastern Air Lines and wrote at night; friends gave her a year's wages to quit and finish the book.
Books that feel like this
More by Harper Lee
Go Set a Watchman
Harper Lee, 2015
Jean Louise comes home to Alabama from New York and finds her small town, and her father, changed — or finds that she is.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is To Kill a Mockingbird for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy slow, observant family stories that turn moral questions over through a child's eyes. The story confronts racism and uses the period's racial language, which some readers may find jarring.
- What is To Kill a Mockingbird like?
- A warm, plain-spoken child's voice carries you through a slow summer of family life, small-town gossip and quiet moral unease. Feels like nostalgia, tenderness and unease. About family, morality and society.
- What should I read after To Kill a Mockingbird?
- If you liked To Kill a Mockingbird, try Little House on the Prairie (Laura Ingalls Wilder), The Client (John Grisham) and The Outsiders (S. E. Hinton).
A taste of the feed
The prairie before anyone has claimed it, and the strange relief of being no one.
There was only the enormous, empty prairie, with grasses blowing in waves of light and shadow across it, and the great blue sky above it, and birds flying up from it and singing with joy because the sun was rising. And on the whole enormous prairie there was no sign that any other human being had ever been there.
Little House on the Prairie · Laura Ingalls Wilder
What it feels like when the world stops holding you up.
I used to feel like i was on the top of the world. Then one day, i noticed that it felt like i was no longer on the top of the world. I was just floating around inside of it. And then eventually, it felt like the world was on top of me.
Without Merit · Colleen Hoover
Look at how texture and fabric become extensions of physical grace.
The pants clung to Lena’s waist and followed the line of her hips. They held close to the shape of her thighs and fell exactly to the tops of her feet. When she took two steps forward, they appeared to hug each of her muscles as they shifted and moved. Carmen gazed in wonder at how different was their effect from Lena’s bland uniform of J. Crew khakis.
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants · Ann Brashares
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