Minds Like Empty Rooms

Right now in my English 9 class, we're reading the amazing novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The way our class analyzes the storyline, characters, and possible deeper meanings behind the story really makes me appreciate good literature. Harper Lee is a genius. The way she transitions between settings and characters is seamless, clean, and you don't even realize what she did until you are looking for it. Wanting some more background info on her, I looked to the ever-reliable Wikipedia, and I found some really interesting facts.

1) Harper Lee is still living. (I didn't think she would be.)

2) To Kill a Mockingbird is the only book she has ever penned.

3) She refuses to interview, and is very modest about her fame.

4) When a Richmond school board tried to ban her book, she responded feistily in a letter to the editor of a local newspaper.

 "Recently I have received echoes down this way of the Hanover County School Board's activities, and what I've heard makes me wonder if any of its members can read.

Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that "To Kill a Mockingbird" spells out in words of seldom more that two syllables a code of honor and conduct, Christion in its ethic, that is the heritage of all Southerners. To hear that the novel is "immoral" has made me count the years between now and 1984, for I have yet to come across a better example of a doublethink.

I feel, however, that the problem is one of illiteracy, not Marxism. Therefore I enclose a small contribution to the Beadle Bumble Fund that I hope will be used to enroll the Hanover County School Board in any first grade of its choice.

5) One of my favorite quotes from her (that I found on Wikipedia) is:

"... in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books." 

If you have any further interest in Harper Lee check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Lee