"To Kill a Mockingbird" is an amazing book, I can't believe I haven't read before now. I was a little intimidated by it for some reason, but it's one of the easiest reads.
First person narratives can be boring if the protagonist isn't incredibly interesting. Scout is our narrator, and the book takes her from six to nine years old. It reads like a memoir, which I'm a big fan of. Scout tells her story simply, with little embellishment. It's folksy and heartbreaking. The only thing I've known about the story is that it deals with a black man accused of raping a white woman, but there's so much more to it than that.
It's a coming of age for a young girl struggling to figure out her world and the people in it. The trial of Tom Robinson is one of the central aspects of her story because it affects her world in such a large way. To see the trial through her young eyes is gripping, sad, exciting and intriguing all at the same time. Scout sees the injustice of the trial in such a simple way that it breaks my heart.
Scout endures seeing her brother grow from a rambunctious boy into a moody teen without fully understanding what he's going through. She, her brother and their friend, Dill, are obsessed with a recluse named Boo Radley, who turns out to be their saving grace at the end of the book.
The things Scout learns, the way she's changed is told subtly and simply and because of that it's incredibly touching. It's a book I will read again and again and will make sure Rosalind reads by the time she's fourteen. It's just that good.
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