
This book was very emotional to read. The topic is about racism and it's sad to think about what white people did to the "Negroes" back in the old days. The story is set in Maycomb County in the 1930s & 40s. The main characters are Scout (Jean Louise), Jem (Jeremy) Atticus Finch and the Radleys. The antagonist is Bob Ewell. The main family has Atticus- the dad-, Scout- the daughter, who is a tomboy-, and Jem- the son, who is four years older than Scout-. Their mom died and Atticus is raising them by himself. He is also a lawyer and he tries to defend Tom Robinson, who is a black man being accused of raping a white woman. Everyone thinks that he did it but really, it's almost the opposite...the white lady wanted to be with him and she got caught trying to make him like her. She was embarrassed so she said that he tried to rape her. It's not that big of a deal for her but it ended up getting poor Tom shot 17 times. Why did they have to add an extra 15 or 16 shots? An important side story- and the reason that the book is named "To Kill a Mockingbird"- is with Boo Radley and the kids. Boo Radley is a young man who is shut in the house and everyone thinks he's terrible and a murderer but he's not. He just doesn't like being outside, being in the light or talking to people. He watched the kids from his house and left them presents in a knot hole in the tree trunk by his house, helped Scout when she wasn't looking by putting a blanket around her on a cold night and he killed Bob Ewell when Bob followed the children home and tried to kill them because he was mad at their dad for defending a black man. So Boo's like the mockingbird, he just doesn't do anything except watch and do nice things sometimes but then when he kills Bob, the Sheriff is afraid for him because of all the attention he'd get if anyone knew. He said everyone would be coming up to the house and bringing pies and knows that Boo would be miserable with all that light and talking and attention. So in the end, they just said that Bob fell on his own knife even though Atticus was worried that Scout and Jem wouldn't understand not being honest about it. Earlier in the book, Atticus says it's a sin to kill a mockingbird because all it does is sing pretty for you. Scout understood and said that making Boo deal with all that attention would be like killing a mockingbird- hence the name.
10/10. Nothing less.