1. Could the same thing happen to Tom Robinson today? Explain why or why not.
  1. Much of To Kill A Mockingbird tells about Scout's summer vacation time. Compare/contrast the activities of Scout's vacation with your own at Scout's age.
  1. How would the story and its effect have changed if Jem and Scout had had a mother living?
  1. Do you think the sibling relationship between Scout and Jem is realistic? Explain why or why not.
  1. Why did Atticus take Tom Robinson's case?
  1. Are there people in your neighborhood who are like any of the character types in the novel? Change the real person's name so his/her identity remains anonymous and describe how he or she is like a particular character.
  1. Why do kids (and sometimes grownups) pick on people like Boo Radley?
  1. If Boo Radley were your neighbor, how would you feel about him? How would you act towards him?
  1. Pretend you are a guide on a tour bus. Describe Maycomb as you drive through the streets.
  1. What was "background" to Aunt Alexandra? Based on the information given in this book and on your own personal experiences, how would you define "background"?
  1. What advantages do the children in this novel have over the adults?
  1. Suppose this novel had been written from Atticus' point of view. How would the story have changed? From Cal's? From Boo Radley's? From Maudie's? Why do you think Harper Lee chose to write from Scout's point of view?

Quotations

  1. "I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that. He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out."
  1. "You're starting off on the wrong foot in every way, my dear. Hold out your hand."
  1. "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of

view. . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

  1. “You are too young to understand it, ... but sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of--oh, of your father."
  1. "There are just some kind of men who--who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results."
  1. Miss Maudie looked around, and the shadow of her old grin crossed her face. "Always wanted a smaller house, Jem Finch. Gives me more yard. Just think, I'll have more room for my azaleas now!"
  1. "Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win."
  1. "Jack! When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness' sake. But don't make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles 'em."
  1. "You're lucky, you know. You and Jem have the benefit of your father's age. If your father was thirty you'd find life quite different."
  1. "The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."
  1. "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."
  1. "Colored folks don't show their ages so fast," she said.
  1. "Maybe because they can't read. Cal, did you teach Zeebo?"
  1. "It's not necessary to tell all you know. It's not lady-like--in the second place, folks don't like to have somebody around knowin' more than they do. It aggravates 'em."
  1. "--good night, Atticus's gone all day and sometimes half the night and off in the legislature and I don't know what--you don't want 'em around all the time, Dill, you couldn't do anything if they were."
  1. "I'll tell him you said hey, little lady."
  1. ". . . you children last night made Walter Cunningham stand in my shoes for a minute. That was enough."
  1. "The court appointed Atticus to defend him. Atticus aimed to defend him. That's what they didn't like about it. It was confusing."
  1. "I try to give 'em a reason, you see. It helps folks if they can latch onto a reason."
  1. "Cry about what, Mr. Raymond?" Dill's maleness was beginning to assert itself.

"Cry about the simple hell people give other people--without even thinking."