This was, after all, Alabama, and attitudes to race and class were strongly prejudiced, but what happened after the verdict was beyond anyoneâ€™s expectations. When Atticus took on the defence of a black man, he warned his children that some unpleasantness could well be the result. Their fascination was frowned upon by their father, Atticus, a lawyer elected to the state legislature. To Scout, her almost-thirteen-year-old brother, Jem (Jeremy Atticus Finch) and their summer vacation friend, Dill (Charles Parker Harris), Boo Radley was an almost mythical creature who remained hidden in the Radley house and was the subject of much childhood speculation. Almost-nine-year-old Scout (Jean Louise) Finch had never set eyes on her reclusive neighbour, Boo (Arthur) Radley, until the night of Halloween, 1935.

To Kill a Mockingbird is the first published novel by American author, Harper Lee. Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. I could not remember when the line above Atticusâ€™s moving finger separated into words, but I had stared at them all the evenings in my memory, listening to the news of the day, Bills To Be Enacted into Laws, the diaries of Lorenzo Day - anything Atticus happened to be reading when I crawled into his lap every night.

Â€œI never deliberately learned to readâ€¦â€¦.Now that I was compelled to think about it, reading was something that just came to me, as learning to fasten the seat of my union suit without looking around, or achieving two bows from a snarl of shoelaces.

To kill a mockingbird hardcover