To Kill a Mockingbird

I sat in a 10th grade English class. The teacher passed out paper still slightly damp from the memeograph machine. The purple print at the top read "Required Reading". A bunch of the kids groaned But secretly I was excited. Back then it wasn't 'cool' to be an avid reader. My eyes scanned words on the paper, title of books I had never heard of, all in alphabetical order. 1984 - George Orwell Animal Farm - George Orwell As I lay dying - William Faulkner Brave New World - Aldous Huxley Catch-22 - Joseph Heller Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway Great Expectations - Charles Dickens Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain Ivanhoe - Sir Walter Scott Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte Lady Chatterly's Lover (abridged) - DH Lawrence Little Women - Louisa may Alcott Lord of the Flies - William Golding Moby Dick - Herman Melville Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens The Call of the Wild - Jack London The Crucible - Arthur Miller The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald The House of seven Gables - Nathaniel Hawthorne The Lord of the Flies - William Golding The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway The Red Badge of Courage - Stephen Crane The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë Selections to be read on approval: Henry David Thoreau Walt Whitman I can't even begin to remember everything on the two column page. I read several of the books in the first six weeks. When asked what a particular book was about Mrs. D. would tells us to read it and find out for ourselves. She gave the analogy that it would be like telling what was in a wrapped present before we had a chance to pull the pretty ribbon and rip into brightly colored wrapping paper. I believed her. Over that year I hopped around the page picking from the titles in no particular order. Around mid-year I chose To Kill a Mockingbird. For me it was the BEST present ever! I fell in love with this book. I read it over and over. I can't even remember how many time I read it. I still have that book and I still read it periodically. I have seen the movie more times that imaginable. I also fell in love with Gregory Peck. I related very closely in many ways with this story. Growing up in my grandparents house it was very easy to put myself in the place of Scout. I was familiar with the setting of the deep south. My uncle, 3 1/2 years my senior, was my Jim. The neighborhood boys interchanged as Dill. We didn't have a Calpurnia but still the setting was so familiar, the conversation so real to life, the thoughts of a child so clear to my way of thinking. Our Boo Radley was Wyman, the neighborhood drunk. He looked just like Otis on Andy Griffith Show. In later years, as an adult, I was shocked to find out Wyman was married to the lady who lived in the house directly opposite our house across the back ally. I also learned Wyman was his last name. I never found out his first name. Mrs. Wyman, my grandmother called her Janet, would lock him out of the house at night and he was left to sleep in the closed in portion of the back porch. Sometimes I can recall his drunken singing as he stumbled down the dirt ally between our houses, the slam of the screen door and his loud bawling to Mrs. Wyman to open the door. She never did. He slept on the porch. Early mornings I would see her hanging out the wash on the clothes line as I helped whomever in our house do the same for us. When she went back into the house she would slam the screen door. As a child I knew slamming the screen door was not a good thing. I once asked my grandma why Mrs. Wyman slammed her screen door. My grandma told me that what other people do was no concern to children, just don't slam our screen door. Sometimes we would be playing outside and we would hear Wyman when he woke up. He would tell Mrs. Wyman not to be so loud. Often he would sit at the picnic table in the far corner of their backyard and drink coffee or what we thought was coffee. I never knew what really was in that cup. I also always felt sad for Mrs. Wyman. She worked in a cotton mill all the days I can remember. I always wonder what shame she felt in front of the other neighbors knowing everyone of us knew who her husband was. I always felt bad that he never had a job yet he was always given a place to sleep even it was on the porch. He always had something to eat. I have no idea where he got his money for his liquor but I suppose he got it from Mrs. Wyman. There is one passage from the book that always comes to mind when I think of Mrs. Wyman. "Atticus said to Jem one day, 'I'd rather you shoot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.' That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. 'Your father's right,' she said. 'Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up peoples gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'" To me Mrs. Wyman was the mockingbird. I will always wondered why Wyman spent his life killing her slowly. Wyman died many years ago, long before his wife, she buried him proper and never hung her head in shame. **********UPDATE******** I thought of some more books that was on that reading list. Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes Main Street - Sinclair Lewis Look Homeward, Angel - Thomas Wolfe Silas Marner - George Eliot The Jungle Books - Rudyard Kipling Treasure Island - Robert Lewis Stevenson White Fang - Jack London A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - Mark Twain The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe Can you believe this!!!!!??? Most frequently banned books in the USA (ca. 1994) Of Mice and Men The Catcher in the Rye The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Lord of the Flies The Grapes of Wrath The Adventures of Tom Sawyer I would prefer my children read these than some of the books I have seen on current high school reading lists. Flat - She was my all time favorite teacher. She is still teaching and I have been out of school for 21 years. She is head of the English Dept. Hoss - Most kids only read 1 book per 6 weeks to meet the demand. We had to write a report on the book and present it in oral form in front of the class. It counted as 1/3 of our grade.