Title: To Kill a Mockingbird

Author: Harper Lee

AR Level: 5.6

AR Points: 15

To Kill a Mockingbird is a great American classic that is set in the 1930s-particularly the Great Depression- in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. It is told from the perspective of eight-year-old Jean Louis “Scout" Finch, a strong-willed girl who is just starting school. This book follows the trials and tribulations of Scout, her older brother Jem, and their father Atticus over the course of three years. As Scout gets older, she begins to understand more of the world, including her father's job as a lawyer, which comes in handy when she finds herself being taunted when Atticus takes on the taboo case of Tom Robinson, a black man who allegedly beat and raped a young white woman. In a little Southern town where racism and segregation are the social norm, gossip travels quicker than lightening, and nothing's more fun on a boring summer day to Jem, Scout, and their friend Dill than trying to get the town recluse, Boo Radley, to come out of his house, a phenomenal story will unfurl that will capture and ensnare readers of all ages.

I give this story five out of five mockingbirds.

Review by the site's student editor Abby in 2008.