To Kill A Mockingbird -- Harper Lee (1)

Well, I'll start off giving this book the number 1 ranking before I even tally up the points.  (I've even forgotten what the point system was.. I'll have to go back and look.

Harper Lee weaved this marvelously beautiful book together through the eyes of a child, Scout, with an amazing air of warmth and feeling.  This book makes me want to increase my vocabulary.  I be able to employ all of the words she uses when writing..  all of the four and five syllable words that we seem to lose in everyday language.  We hear a lot about all the words we gain every year in the new dictionaries.. (blog, internet, etc) but never realize that our language is actually losing far more than it's gaining.  When the settlers first arrived in the colonies, the English language had an average of 6,000 everyday words.  Our vocabulary now is around 2,000 everyday words.  This isn't to say we don't use other words... but we don't use other words on the level we use those 2,000.

She uses all of these and more.  Based in and around 1935, "Mockingbird" is about the coming of age for children in a Southern town filled with seemingly inescapable class characterizations, racial tension and rape.  The South itself plays a large role in the language and lifestyle of characters portrayed, as well as the North's handling of the South since Reconstruction ended.  I strongly recommend this book to anyone to read.

Now, once again, the all important rating:

Flow:  The book flowed effortlessly through the chapters, though Harper Lee uses a definite dividing line between chapters.  She ends each chapter with a good line, then starts the next seemingly (sometimes) in the middle of a story as if we'd been there the entire time.  I compare it to the needle on a record player skipping. For those too young to know what that means..  think of it as a CD skipping. ;)  -- 9

Believability:  Since most of the book was taken from her memories as a child and the trial itself was taken from something she'd heard about in 1936, the book is definitely believable.  I think the most believable thing about it, however, is the way she writes.  -- 9
 
Suspension of Reality:  You can hear, see and smell the characters.  When Scout brings cold corn bread to Dill to eat, I could taste it.. though I think I was probably hungry.. Point is, when I picked the book up, I almost felt the need to tell them I'd be back later...  anyway.  -- 9

Message:  The book is so popular it has never been out of print.  That is something to say.  At the same time, only 6 literary studies have been done on it, and whether there have been more compelling journals or novels out there to pick from and it has simply been unlucky, I think that may be because they felt no need to defend it.  It's so popular, why bother talking about it.  People read studies when the ones writing them bring controversy to the table. And unless a literary study is talking about how horrible the book is, there would be none.  There are so many messages in this book, the coming of age of a young boy and girl in a different era, racial tensions reflected in deciding between a black man on trial for allegedly raping a white woman, social structures, religion...  -- 9

Intrinsics:  All in all....   I don't know how much more to say about the book.  I loved it.  The language was mesmerizing and makes me want to read the dictionary... not just to see the words and understand them, but to know them.  To put them to everyday usage.  -- 10

Total:  46 of 50