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I have just finished "To Kill a Mockingbird", by Harper Lee. It is part of the curriculum for school, and sooner or later my english class will have to read it, but I've read it already, and I'm glad I did.

See, there are some things you need to read on your own, in my case, at least. You don't always need to have a bunch of irritating questions you already know the answers to to understand and really think about something. I read "The Catcher in the Rye" (by J. D. Salinger) at the end of last summer, and I feel that I can really compare it to Mockingbird.

"To Kill a Mockingbird" seems to have a lot to do with growing up and learning to understand things, just as "The Catcher in the Rye" does, although these go through different periods of life. I also just feel that the two are alike, for myself, anyways, because I am positive that I had almost the same reaction to the ending of Mockingbird that I had for the ending of Catcher in the Rye. They both left me needing to get up from bed and come type in this journal-thing, just so I'd always have the reaction down. These defiantly seem to be some very peculiar and... affecting books for me. I just really believe in them, I suppose you could say.

It's funny, though, I remember talking to my teacher earlier in the year, talking about why we should have to read Mockingbird (it was very funny, really, she asked me "Well, why do you have to run the mile?" and I came up with this very logical answer involving "key terms" we were learning in PE, such as "cardio-vascular endurance", so that whole part of her argument didn't end too well, all because she had to choose the freak kid who actually listens in PE to spring such an argument on). But moving on, I was completely against reading Mockingbird, and I actually vouched for Catcher in the Rye, only to find out some number of months later that the two are actually very alike.

I remember my reaction to the first page or two quite well..."Who's this Jem person? I'm confused: how many siblings does this character have?" (Why that was what I was wondering about I don't know.) I also recall saying that I had thought very similar thoughts about "The Catcher in the Rye"'s first chapter, but then I started getting into it and couldn't put the book down. Same thing (almost) with Mockingbird. I'll never forget some things about these books now: one, when the protagonist of Catcher in the Rye used the title in the book, and I made the connection and finally understood the title, two, when, right near the end of Mockingbird, in a sentence or two the first page finally made sense.

And one last thing (or maybe two): Yes, do judge a book by its lame violet color, and then re-judge it when you see a cooler version of the cover on wikipedia. Then, I kept trying to figure out how both books could end with so few pages left, until I realized that Mockingbird was just like Catcher in the Rye, and that Catcher in the Rye is something not too common.

-Seven
7.6.13.