Set in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, the United States during the Depression*, the book follows three years in the life of 8-year-old Scout Finch, her brother, Jem, and their father, Atticus. During that time, a young black man accused* of raping a white woman was arrested* and the case went to trial. Though her story deals with big themes, author Harper Lee chooses to tell it through the eyes of a child. The result is a tough and tender novel of race, class, justice*, and the pain of growing up.

    Like the slow-moving people of her fictional* town, Lee takes her time getting to the heart of her story. We first meet the Finches the summer before Scout’s first year at school. She, her brother, and Dill Harris, a boy who spends the summers with his aunt in Maycomb, while away* the hours reenacting scenes from Dracula and plotting ways to get a peek at the town bogeyman*, Boo Radley.

    At first the children know little about the situations surrounding the alleged* rape of Mayella Ewell, the daughter of a drunk and violent white farmer. Then Atticus is called on to defend* the accused, Tom Robinson, and soon Scout and Jem find themselves caught up in events they don’t understand. During the trial, the town shows its ugly side.

    But we also read about the bright side — in the struggle of an elderly woman to overcome her morphine* habit before she dies; in the heroism* of Atticus Finch, standing up for what he knows is right; and finally in Scout’s hard-won understanding that most people are kind “when you really see them.”

    Published in 1960, the book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.

    (SD-Agencies)