Scout, Jem, Dill, and Atticus. Always Atticus

Some things I’ve learned from reading To Kill a Mockingbird aloud to my classes (four times ever day):

There’s something powerful in reading aloud.  I’ve always loved people reading stories to me, especially Christmas books that my mom would read to us as children.  And I’ve always loved reading books aloud.  One of my goals before I turn 32 is to somehow look into or audition for reading an audio book, simply because that sounds, quite literally, like my most ideal job. 

But besides all of that, there is some sort of power in reading Atticus’s words aloud.  In bringing Boo to life that way, in creating the aura of shadow around him in the beginning of the story, only to bring clarity to him at the end.

In reading this four times over every day, I’ve come to realize that the third time is really where I hit my stride.  The first is pretty good, the second almost there, but by the third pass through, I can hit all the inflections just right and I can anticipate the questions before they come.  By the fourth, I’m a little into autopilot.  But third is my sweet spot. 

I was prepared for my students to not really enjoy or appreciate this book.  I told myself before I started teaching it that it would be okay if they didn’t think it was amazing.  After all, I read it for the first time in tenth grade and while I loved it, it was only when I re-read it at 25 that I really adored it.  When I would’ve counted it one of my favorite books.  So if they couldn’t really get it at 12, that would be okay. 

I wasn’t prepared for them to feel so invested and involved so quickly.  Every day they come in and ask excitedly, “Are we going to read today?”

Granted, they don’t really see the whole picture sometimes: i.e. they think the title is going to be because Atticus shot a mockingbird when he was young and it’s haunted him all these years and that’s why he stopped shooting things.  Also, some of them are convinced that Calpurnia and Atticus are going to end up together. Sure guys, this is a town where a white man can, without any evidence, accuse a black man of rape and have him convicted, but a white man and a black woman will get married, no problem.  

But they’re loving it. And I’m loving how much they’re loving it.

In what might be the strangest comparison yet, I’ve realized there’s a moment for me in books that I love.  I call it The Silver Doe moment, because I first became aware of it in reading and re-reading and listening and re-listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  Now, for some reason that chapter where Harry and Hermoinie are camping and the silver doe patronus appears is one of my favorite moments in the whole series.  Certainly the Final Battle, the last 200 pages or so trump it in the way that only an epic climax to a classic hero story can.  The scene with Harry and Dumbledore is just too good for words.  But as a non-highest-point-in-4000-pages way, The Silver Doe is the shit.   I can’t explain it, I can’t say that anyone else necessarily feels the same, but for me, there’s something transcendent about that chapter, something that pulls on the very deepest heartstrings the way that only the best books do. 

I was reading aloud last week and I suddenly knew—my Silver Doe moment in To Kill a Mockingbird is when Atticus shoots the rabid dog.  Other details, especially of the beginning, fade away, but that chapter I remember with absolute clarity.  There’s something about that scene when Atticus, who up to this point is interesting because he allows his kids to call him by his first name, and who is otherwise notable for  He is not just an attorney, but a remarkable marksman who gave that up.  He has power that he lays aside, but is willing to pick it up again for the sake of his children and his town.  It’s a defining moment.

his deep river of tolerance and wisdom, becomes much more multi-faceted and slightly mysterious.

(On a side note, it’s moments like that which make stories worth reading, which give them their almost mystical power.  It’s moments like that which allow us to see a little further into the human condition that we ever could without sharing a story, and it’s moments like that which make the truth of the story the ultimate goal in reading.  It’s also why, when several years ago, some people tried to convince me that there were some books which were “unclean” and therefore inappropriate, that I felt it as an almost physical attack.  It’s why I still carry that year of teaching around, even four years later.)

But to continue the Harry Potter comparison, the real epic Final Battle is coming in To Kill a Mockingbird.  And in the same way that hearing Harry offer Voldemort forgiveness and a last chance at repentance in the end, strikes the most perfect chord within me, I cannot wait to be able to read the line where Scout makes us understand why the book is called To Kill a Mockingbird.  To come to that moment where the final piece of the puzzle lines up perfectly and things fall into place, and to share that with students.  All 120 of them.  I can’t even explain how excited I am.