NAME: Alex Freitag DATE: February 24, 2008
TITLE: To Kill a Mockingbird TIME: 60 min. HOURS: 1
AUTHOR: Harper Lee PAGES: 1-50
TOTAL PAGES THIS WEEK: 50

RESPONSE:
To Kill a Mockingbird is a very good book about a girl named Jean Louise who lives in a very rural town in the '50's (nicknamed 'Scout' by her family and goes by that name). According to what I've read so far in the story, she has a brother named Jim Atticus (also nicknamed 'Jem' and also going by that name) and they have a friend, older than her by one year named Charles Harris (who's folks call him 'Dill') and they live in a county called Maycomb. The story began with a fairly long narration and it becomes clear that the house across the street from Scout's house (the Radley Place) is a cursed house, where anything edible that comes from it will kill you. At least according to popular Maycomb legend. Inhabiting the house are a preacher who dies so early in the book, you can't find out anything much about him, his poor wife who has to live with the legends and truths put upon the old house, and their son, Arthur, named Boo Radley by Maycomb County. The story is currently circulating around the house, where Boo Radley stabbed his father in the leg with a pair of scissors, and what Scout experiences and feels like at school, which I'm sorry to say, are not very good. They began when Dill came to Maycomb County from a place called Meridian. When they met Dill, they quickly befriended him, although he had to take a trip back to Meridian when Summer was almost over. Scout became bored very quickly, and displayed it too. But when Jem told her that she was going to go to school, she became very excited, scaring Jem that she would embarrass him, and he had to put a few guidelines down for her, saying that school is different from home. She definitely thought so, when she met her teacher, who according to her 'looked and smelled like a peppermint drop'. When her teacher learned that she could already read and write, she got mad and told Scout to tell her father not to teach her anymore, when in reality, he hadn't taught her anything about reading, although his colored servant Calpurnia had made her learn how to write on rainy days so she wouldn't bother her. Scout's teacher thought she was lying, ingnored her, and repeated herself, saying that he did not know how to teach, that she would learn to read and write in the third grade, and that she would try to 'undo the damage'. Scout slowly trudged through the school year, and is right now on summer vacation, and is surprised when the trees in the Radley's yard contain things like gum, and old coins, and the story circulates around the Radley Place more than ever. When they play an old game of theirs, where a person gets in a tire, and is rolled, Jem pushes Scout so hard, that she lands in front of the Radley Place (Jem yelling at her to get back, since everyone knows the Radley Place is cursed). But even above that, she hears something from the house that makes her disbelieve the legend that Boo Radley had died and been stuffed up a chimney, for even over Jem yelling at her to get away from the house, she hears someone in the house laughing. This book is one of the best books I've ever read, and I feel like I can never put it down. It's entertained me so far, and I can't wait to see what happens next.