The Big Read is an initiative of the National
Endowment for the Arts in
partnership with the Institute
of Museum
and Library Services and Arts Midwest.
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If you are interested in the themes and history of To
Kill a Mockingbird, you might want to explore these books, movies and
websites.
Adults
- All the Way Home
- by Ann Tatlock
- An Irish-German girl and a Japanese girl are friends during the
1930’s; after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese family is sent to an internment camp
- and the girls do not cross paths for 20 years.
- A
Time to Kill
- by John Grisham
- Following the brutal rape of his 10-year-old daughter, Carl Lee
Hailey, a black man, kills the two white men accused of the crime.
- Blood
on the Leaves
- by Jeff Stetson
- An African-American prosecutor finds himself prosecuting a civil rights
leader accused of killing whites who were acquitted of hate crimes.
- The
Bottoms
- by Joe R. Lansdale
- Harry Crane discovers a grisly crime, unleashing a storm of fear
and racial animosity while his father, the town constable,
struggles to see
- that justice is done.
- Boy's Life
- by R.R. McCammon
- Young boy in 1964 Alabama is intriqued by the corpse his father found
handcuffed in a sunken car. Other odd events are happening all around him
and his sleepy town.
- The
Burying Field
- by Kenneth Abel
- After four white teenagers desecrate an old slave burial ground,
racial tensions erupt in a vicious war over land, power, and memory
in a
- small Louisiana town.
- Capote
in Kansas: a ghost story
- by Kim Powers
- A fictional look at the relationship between Truman Capote and
Nelle Harper Lee, especially on their trip to Kansas during research for
In Cold Blood.
- Clover
- by Dori Sanders
- Interracial marriage is seen through the eyes of 10-year-old
Clover who is raised by a white step-mother despite protests from
relatives.
- Christmas Memory
- by Truman Capote
- Until he was ten years old, Capote lived with distant relatives in rural
Alabama. This book is an autobiographical story of those years and his
frank and fond memories of one of his cousins, Miss Sook Faulk.
- Color
of Justice
- by Gary Hardwick
- When prominent members of an African-American community are
murdered, truths about detectives are revealed and the motive is stark.
- The
Darkest Child
- by Delores Phillips
- Fourteen-year-old Tangy Mae tells of the brutal physical and
mental abuse that her mother inflicts on her and her ten siblings.
- Fried Green Tomatoes at the
Whistle Stop Cafe
- Fannie Flagg
- Most of the town's life centered around its one cafe, whose owners,
gentle Ruth and tomboyish Idgie, served up grits (both true and hominy) to
anyone who passed by. Their love for each other and just about everyone
else survived visits from the sheriff, the Ku Klux Klan, a host of hungry
hoboes, a murder and the rigors of the Depression.
- A
Killing in This Town
- by Olympia Vernon
- Adam Pickens, age 13, is ready for his rite of passage into the Ku
Klux Klan— calling out a black man and dragging them through
the woods
- until he’s dead.
- A
Lesson Before Dying
- by Ernest Gaines
- A young teacher, asked to impart his pride and learning to a young
black man awaiting execution, comes face to face with his own
cynicism
- and hopelessness in 1948 Louisiana
- The
Man in My Basement
- by Walter Mosley
- To save the home that has belonged to his family for generations,
a young black man rents his basement to a mysterious stranger for
the
- summer.
- The
Secret Life of Bees
- by Sue Kidd Monk
- After her “stand-in mother” insults the three biggest racists
in town, Lily Owens and bold black Rosaleen escape to Tiburon,
South Carolina
- where they are taken in by bee-keeping sisters.
- Walking
Through Shadows
- by Bev Marshal
- The quiet farming community of Zebulon, Mississippi is disrupted by the murder of 17-year-old Sheila Barnes in 1941.
- The
White
Road
- by John Connolly
- A private investigator runs into complications while investigating
the rape and murder of a young Southern woman as time runs out to
save an African-American from the death penalty.
- Your
Blues Ain’t Like Mine
- by Bebe Moore Campbell
- A racist beating in a small Mississippi town ripples through generations, changing forever the lives of
everyone involved with the incident.
-
Teen/Young Adults
- Black
and White
- by Paul Volponi
- Story of two friends, one black, one white, who make a bad
mistake, and the realties of the urban criminal justice system.
- Burning
Up
- by Caroline B. Cooney
- When a girl from an inner-city church is murdered, Macey Clare,
15, discovers prejudice in her grandparents and their wealthy Connecticut
community.
- Lives
of Our Own
- by Lorri Hewett
- After her parents divorce, Shawna returns to her father’s
hometown and discovers a surprising connection with one of the
popular white
- girls at school.
- Mississippi
Trial, 1955
- by Chris Crowe
- A 16-year-old finds himself at odds with his grandfather over
issues surrounding the kidnapping and murder of a 14-year-old
African
- -American from Chicago.
- The
Watsons Go to Birmingham
- by Christopher Paul Curtis
- The ordinary interactions and everyday routines of the Watsons, an
African-American family living in Flint
, Michigan, are drastically
- changed after they go to visit Grandma in Alabama
in the summer of 1963.
Young Readers
- Because
of Winn-Dixie
- by Kate DiCamillo
- India Opal Buloine, age 10, describes all that happens in her
first summer caused by the lovable, ugly dog she calls Winn-Dixie.
- From
Miss Ida’s Porch
- by Sandra Belton
- The residents of Church Street gather on Miss Ida’s porch to hear stories of past events.
- My
Louisiana Sky
- by Kimberly Willis Holt
- Tiger Ann must decide whether to live with her mentally slow
parents.
- Roll
of Thunder, Hear My Cry
- by Mildred Taylor
- A black family, living in the South during the 1930’s, faces
prejudice and discrimination, which their children do not
understand.
- Sounder
- by William Armstrong
- A young boy, humiliated and angry when his father is sentenced for
stealing a ham from a white man, finds renewed hope when he
- learns to read.
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