Through the eyes of Scout, a feisty six-year old tomboy who presents her story first as a reminiscence of events from her childhood. Her father Atticus Finch, a lawyer in a racially divided Alabama town in the 1930s. He agrees to defend a young black man who is wrongly accused of raping a white woman.
I'm almost frightened to give my review on this book. I first read this book back in 2010 in high school English where we studied relationships and race and from what I remembered of reading it beforehand it was a powerful story of not just the division between of race but also the beliefs of how people at this time were brought up to believe concerning whites and blacks.
For me this time round reading it four years later and at a mature age, I feel that I appreciated the message of the story rather than the story itself. If I'm being completely honest it took me a long time to read it as to me it was simply an awful lot of "we did this today..." blah blah blah and not necessarily straight to the point of the trial of Tom Robinson and its outcome. Understandably this story is told by Scout- a young girl and therefore her understanding of society were very limited. Obviously to us the reader we perhaps understand better than she, in terms of at this point in society the discrimination of blacks by whites was far more severe compared with today's society.
I was anticipating the book to get straight into the court case rather than it being the last small part of the book- perhaps the younger me enjoyed Scout's journey leading up to the trial but this opinion has somewhat changed from re-reading it.
Despite me giving this book a three star rating, by no means am I implying that this book is rubbish- because its not! I simply felt that the most important part of the book was the last quarter.
The message for me behind this book and what Scout's story is trying to convey, is to not judge someone as to how they appear but their attitude and behaviour. What I most loved about it was the fact it brings to the surface that not everyone discriminated against blacks- Atticus Finch stood up for what he believe to be right and was a strong figure/role model for his children to educate them in what is right and what is wrong.
Despite what others may tell you, you have your own opinion and it doesn't matter whether its different to theirs because it shows you've used your own brain and knowledge to come to your own conclusion.
