To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, was first published in 1960. The theme of this book is that when you get to know someone they usually are a good person. The theme can be supported by this quote, “Atticus, he was real nice…most people are Scout, when you finally see them.” This story is about a girl growing up in the South in the late 1930s; her nickname is Scout. The main characters are Scout, Jem, Scout’s brother, Atticus, Scout’s father, Mr. Ewell, and Tom Robinson. Scout’s father is a lawyer, and he has the predicament of representing an African American man in a Southern court, many people in the town hate him for doing that. The case is that the black man, Tom Robinson, is believed to have raped a white girl, but what really happened is that the white girl, Mayella Ewell tried to kiss Tom when he was helping her, and her dad saw it; therefore, then Tom was scared and ran. In the end tom is sentenced to death because he is black.
Near the end of the book Jem and Scout are walking through the school yard late at night. Mr. Ewell jumps out of the darkness at them and tries to kill them; consequently, Jem tries to fight him off, and gets his arm broken. It seems like he is going to kill them, and then Boo Radley, Their neighbor that never comes out of his house comes out, flings Mr. Ewell on the ground, and stabs him with his knife.
Scout and Jem want to be treated like they are adults; I can empathize with them because I have felt the same way before. I feel that this book was exceedingly well written, and I liked it a lot. My favorite part of the book was when Boo Radley stabbed Mr. Ewell, because Mr. Ewell was evil, and he kept on hurting and killing good people. This book can teach one lessons about life, and I would recommend it to just about anybody.