To Kill a Mockingbird, Pillars of the Earth and My English Teacher

Well, I am a delinquent as you can see by the fact that I haven't written since November. Yep - a Delinquent.

When I last checked in, I was starting to read To Kill a Mockingbird and I have finished it. I should've written about it long ago because I finished it before Christmas, but with the holidays . . . well, you know. Excuses . . .

Excuses . . .

To Kill a Mockingbird was wonderful. I wish I had read it earlier. My absolute favorite bird is the Mockingbird. We have an abundance of them here in Southern California and I love them because of their fierceness and the fact that they sing a million different songs all at the same time. Love to listen to them even if it is 3am. Yes, they do like to sing that early sometimes in the summer. They are very unique birds and to kill one would be a crime.

I read and read and read waiting to be clued in on what the signifance of the title was. I love Mockingbirds. This is a book ABOUT mockingbirds . . . or so I thought. There is one small reference in the book to it being a crime to kill a mockingbird. The title is only significant at the end of the book when the reader equates the mockingbird with the uniqueness of Boo Radley. Had he been "killed" he would not have been around in the end to save Gem and Scout.

I watched the movie after I was done reading the book. It was, after all, an academy award winning film. While it is not 100% faithful to the book, it does a great job of capturing the essence. It was also very strange to see a very young Robert Duvall as Boo Radley.

I am now on to a BIG book. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet. This is a HUGE book. I will be reading it forever. I am on page 400, but again, it is sooo huge that I have a cheater book I am reading during my intermission. The book is called The Book Thief and it is narrated by Death!! It is set during WWII and is written in an odd style that is actually quite fascinating.

I have reconnected with my High School English teacher through Facebook and we are reading The Pillars together (Although she just started!!). We shall see what she thinks when we are done. Maybe she will guest write a post!

On to my reading . . .

The Time Traveler's Wife -- Where are We?

Just finished The Time Traveler's Wife. For 537 pages, it is a quick read. The past, present and future are interwoven so very interestingly in this novel that you can't put it down. I loved all of the characters and situations. The only part that was hard was trying to keep up with what year we were in. It jumped around soo much that I always had to look back at the previous section to see where we had just come from. It is a very interesting book. I highly recommend it. It certainly read faster than Native Son!

It is the day before Thanksgiving and time for being thankful. . . and for food. I am thankful for books and that I was encouraged to read when I was young. I am also thankful that I did not have to endure censorship. I was allowed to read just about anything I wanted. I am also thankful for Baking. When I am just not myself or need something sweet, I am thankful for this goofy passion of mine. The Pecan pie is in the oven as we speak.

Starting To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Leave me a message on my message board below and let me know you are reading with me.

THe Lion, The Wtich and The Wardrobe and what Harry Potter has to do With it!

So, to be completely honest here (which I aim to do), I picked this book because it was thin and I knew I would be reading it on a plane and didn't want to have to carry much.

I was on a VERY long flight to Amsterdam with my friend and couldn't put it down. There were recently released movies at my finger tips that I could have watched. I had all the time in the world to catch up on some movies I really wanted to watch and instead I read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

Believe it or not, I have not seen the recent Hollywood version of this book, although I hear it is good. And I LOVE to read a book and compare it to the movie, but just haven't gotten around to it. Will put it on my list of movies to see. (Yes, I keep a list. Duh! I would forget if I didn't!)

At 206 pages (more pages for my total. See running total to the left), this was a fast read. It was a quaint story. I know a lot about C.S. Lewis, the author, so it was fun to read it and imagine him writing it. My favorite parts were where he inserted himself as the Author. He would say things like "And now we need to get back to the Beavers to see what they are up to." It was just like an old Grandfather telling a story. FUN!!!

And to connect the book with real life, I have a story! When one of my kids was in 1st grade, he got in trouble for reading a book on the playground. Not just any book!! Harry Potter, God Forbid!! See, they go to a Christian School that for most of the time, is a wonderful place. But having been an English Major in College, Censorship is a big issue with me and Christian Schools are famous for it. There are Christians who sit on both sides of the fence on letting their kids read things like Harry Potter. I don't want to debate that here. Suffice it to say, I lean towards letting them read all kinds of stuff. HELLO!!! I was an ENGLISH MAJOR!!!!

So my kid gets in trouble for reading this book. First off, he is a 1st grader and he can read this HUGE book. That ought to tell you something. The kid is smart. Second of all, the dumb yard duty teacher made him cry because he was reading it. Oh my! That made my cockles stand up!!! When I found out about it, I called the principal up and asked him what was the deal. He said that they would prefer that my kid didn't read stuff with witches and witchcraft etc on the school property. Was he kidding me??? You see where this is going . . .

I laid into him about the fact that in the after school day care they show every Disney film known to man. Think about it. Cinderella. Snow White. Sleeping Beauty. What do they all have in common??? Yeah!! A WITCH!! Then I further buried him (I was mad!) by asking him about the revered The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. They have a whole class devoted to him at the Christian college across the street. I was never in debate, so I don't know exactly how to debate point by point, but I nailed him. He stammered around for a bit and said I guess we will have to disagree. You are darn tootin'! For the next 6 years of my kid's Elementary school education, that poor man avoided me at all costs when he saw me on the campus!!! Hee hee!

So it was about time that I got around to reading the book which helped sink his argument. I enjoyed it tremendously. It made me want to read the other books in the series . . . . later. I have a lot more reading to do.

ON A SIDE NOTE:
(This is where I have to admit that I cheated AGAIN.)

On the plane I also read another book called Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. It is about the persecution of the Jews in Paris. I know a lot about the Holocaust from studying it in Grad School, but didn't study too much about it's impact in Paris. This was a fictional account, but well worth the read. Adding (Cheater pages) : 293

The Diary of a Young Girl: Anne Frank

Wow! Was this a great book. For a 13 year old girl, she was extremely bright and insightful. I know I wasn't as well informed or as intellectual as she was at that age. I went back and looked at my journals from that time and was mortified at the difference. Different times I guess. I also didn't have the threat of Ethnic Cleansing facing me.

I feel like a dieter who has cheated on her diet. I really wanted to read this book even though it is not on my reading list. It's not a novel even though it reads like one. It is a autobiography that details The Frank Family and the Van Pel family's adventure in hiding from the Germans. I know a lot about the holocaust and even studied Holocaust Literature at the graduate level, but, believe it or not, I had never read this account. It's like not reading Dr. Suess as a little kid. That's how important this piece of literature is.

What I found even more fascinating than the book was a documentary on Anne Frank (I found it at the Grocery Store of all places) narrated by Kenneth Branaugh, with Glenn Close reading bits from her Diary. The interesting part of this documentary was that it finished the story where Anne's Diary abruptly ends (they were arrested and taken to a concentration camp on August 3, 1945). Everyone in the Hiding Place died except for Otto Frank, Anne's father. Most of that part of the story is widely known. But what is not as widely known is that she could have potentially survived. There was one selection that she did not attend because Margot, her sister was ill. She chose to stay with her in the barracks. Unfortunately, it was at this selection that women were chosen to go to a work camp and all of the women who were selected survived the Holocaust.

Can you imagine what she could have done with her life had she lived!? She wanted to be a writer and journalist. She wanted to do something bigger with her life. She has done something pretty big already. It is hard to imagine what more she would have done had she survived.

What a good read. I am going to make my teens read it. It would be good for them to see what other teens in different situations have had to deal with.