To Kill a Mockingbird: York Notes for GCSE

by Harper Lee

York Notes for GCSE offer an approach to English Literature that aims to help readers achieve a better grade. This series has been completely updated to reflect the needs of today's students. The new editions are filled with detailed summaries, commentaries on key themes, characters, language and style, illustrations, exam advice and much more.

Paperback

First published August 20, 2002

About the author

Nelle Harper Lee was an American novelist whose 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and became a classic of modern American literature. She assisted her close friend Truman Capote in his research for the book In Cold Blood (1966). Her second and final novel, Go Set a Watchman, was an earlier draft of Mockingbird, set at a later date, that was published in July 2015 as a sequel.
The plot and characters of To Kill a Mockingbird are loosely based on Lee's observations of her family and neighbors in Monroeville, Alabama, as well as a childhood event that occurred near her hometown in 1936. The novel deals with racist attitudes, the irrationality of adult attitudes towards race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s, as depicted through the eyes of two children.
Lee received numerous accolades and honorary degrees, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007, which was awarded for her contribution to literature.

Reviews

[Lizzy Balmain · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars
Unfortunately these notes are obviously written by a white author, othering black perspective even more insidiously than the novel it seeks to analyse. However, it was originally written in 1997, so it gets some stars as acknowledgement of the 'times in which it was written'.

[Allie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for school and did not enjoy it for that reason alone. Otherwise, grat book with a good message and, just, over all, well written/executed novel. But being forced to over analyze it kind of ruined its magic...

[Dana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Classic