To Kill A Mockingbird

In case you missed it, I'm reading all of the books I should have read in high school but didn't for two reasons:

1) I grew up in a small farming community and my school never required me to read anything.
2) I majored in boys.

For the full list of the books, please read this post.

I'm really glad I started with To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee because it is required reading in the 8th grade at the school my kids will attend in a few years.  I feel smarter already!!

In 6 years, I will be prepared to answer questions from my children about the book and to explain certain things about what the world looked like a long time ago; especially in the south.  I've never lived in that part of the country so like them, everything I know is from books or television.

Now that I've read the book, I'm also interested in watching the movie that was released December 25th, 1962 starring Gregory Peck.  Wow, they sure didn't waste any time making it into a movie.   The film won three academy awards:

• Best Actor ~  Gregory Peck
• Best Adapted Screenplay ~ Horton Foote
• Best Art Direction ~ Henry Bunstead, Alexander Golitzen and Oliver Emert

If you are a fan of historical fiction, I think you will enjoy this book.  I had several people tell me it is one of their favorites of all time and I can see why.  I feel a bit like I miss the characters and would like a chance to meet Boo Radley myself!

Have you read To Kill a Mockingbird? What do you like about it?

By the way, the next book I'm reading is A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare.

Books I Should Have Read in High School

I was sitting in the school parking lot with my friend Margaret when we started talking about books.  She mentioned a few that she read in high school and I had not.  That got me thinking that there are a lot of books that I have heard about that were not required reading at MY high school.

Near as I can tell, the problem is that I went to school in Greeley, Colorado.  Greeley was a smallish cow town out on the prairie and I think it's possible that they thought we all wouldn't amount to anything so why educate us.  We were all going to just be farmers, clerks at Walmart or truck drivers.

My life long ambition was to get married.  That's night.  I majored in boys!

I'm decided that this can't go on any longer so I'm going to read all of the books that I should have read in high school if I had lived somewhere....like Denver.

Here is the list:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Lee Harper

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

The Giver by Lois Lowry

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

1984 by George Orwell

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Whuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

I'll be starting To Kill a Mockingbird Next week!  If you'd like to join me click here.