To Kill a Mockingbird, the novel by Harper Lee, was published in 1960. It is the moving story of childhood in a small Southern town during the Great Depression, as well as a tale of racial inequity, courage, and of coming of age for the main character and for our country. In 1991, the Library of Congress conducted a survey of readers, which found that this was among the highest ranked books that made a difference in people's lives, surpassed only by the Bible.

1.Time and place: Describe the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, the setting for the novel, and how it presents life in a small Southern town during the Great Depression.

2.What themes are being introduced? List as many as you can discover thus far in the book.
Can you anticipate how they will play out?

3.List the main characters (Atticus, Scout, Jem, Calpurnia, and Dill). What do you learn about them in the first part of the book?
Atticus Finch is the moral center of the book. How is this communicated?

4.What conflicts are being introduced?

5.Comment on the narrator's voice, which is in the first-person perspective of a little girl. Does she actually write/sound like a little girl, or has the author used a memoir technique by including memories and viewpoints as she understood them looking back?

6.What memories of your own childhood come to mind as you read about Scout's adventures and experiences?

How has childhood changed since the Great Depression? One way to answer this question is by interviewing one person in your life who lived through the Depression, which lasted from 1929 to the beginning of the Second World War (early 1940s).