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Scout, Atticus, & Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of To Kill a Mockingbird Kindle Edition

by Mary McDonagh Murphy (Author), Wally Lamb (Foreword) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 96 ratings
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To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Harper Lee’s beloved classic To Kill a Mockingbird, filmmaker Mary Murphy has interviewed prominent figures—including Oprah, Anna Quindlen, and Tom Brokaw—on how the book has impacted their lives. These interviews are compiled in Scout, Atticus, and Boo, the perfect companion to one of the most important American books of the 20th Century. Scout, Atticus, and Boo will also feature a foreword from acclaimed writer Wally Lamb.
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  1. Print length
    239 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    HarperCollins e-books
  5. Publication date
    May 21, 2010
  6. File size
    1096 KB
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Murphy—an Emmy-winning writer, director, and producer—celebrates Harper Lee's only novel with a documentary, Hey, Boo, and this book, a collection of mostly venerating interviews with writers and celebrities, black and white, from Oprah Winfrey to Tom Brokaw, Rosanne Cash, and Richard Russo. A few incisive remarks emerge. James McBride, for example, takes issue with calling Harper Lee brave—doing so absolve[s] yourself of your own racism. Wally Lamb and Allan Gurganus, among others, reveal Lee's influence on their writing. Unfortunately, in Part I, Murphy summarizes the most interesting of her subjects' comments, creating a sense of déjà-vu when the reader gets to the actual interviews. Racism, smalltown America, Lee's 50-year silence since the book's publication, her relationship with Truman Capote, and the appeal of the book's principal characters are touched on by most of the interviewees; such shared themes and opinions result in redundancy. Readers should turn (or return) to To Kill a Mockingbird before bothering to dip into this disappointing collection. 11 b&w photos. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“You come away from Murphy’s book with a renewed amazement at what Lee was able to achieve with a single perfect novel.”

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B003MVZ88I
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperCollins e-books; Reprint edition (May 21, 2010)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 21, 2010
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1096 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 239 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 96 ratings

About the author

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Mary McDonagh Murphy

Mary McDonagh Murphy

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Mary McDonagh Murphy is an independent documentary director and writer whose work has appeared on PBS. She was a producer at CBS News for 20 years where she won six Emmy awards. She has written for Newsweek, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Post and Publishers Weekly. A native of Rhode Island, Murphy is a graduate of Wesleyan University and was a John S. Knight fellow at Stanford University. She lives in Scarborough, N.Y. with her husband, Bob Minzesheimer, and their two children

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
96 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Eric Selby
5.0 out of 5 stars It's a Sin Not to Read This Book
Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2010
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I am old enough to have been a college student when To Kill a Mockingbird was published in the summer of 1960. I can even recall where I was when a lovely elderly lady standing on her front porch in a picturesque Vermont town said I should definitely read, "This book." And she handed it to me. I do recall being completely taken by the way the novel opened. I had just returned for the summer from my first year at American University where for the first time in my life I was surrounded by people referred to in the then most polite term as Negroes. They, of course, worked in the cafeteria, washed the floors, cleaned the bathrooms, moved the lawns, drove the city buses... And I felt conflicted because racism was not just a southern phenomena. Oh,no, my mother, born and raised in Vermont, used "the n word" only. But this lovely elderly lady who handed me the newly released Harper Lee novel was not.
Then I became an English teacher. And this is a novel I read again and again as I guided students through it. And every time I did, I found myself related to Dill, thinking about how much he was like me. I didn't exactly say to myself "because he is a little homosexual boy" because back then I didn't want to admit to myself who I was/who I am.
And fortunately in this book the author has acknowledged that, not that this is the first time I have read this.
This is a wonderful book for anyone who is completely in love with what may be America's most well-known and often read novel, Nelle Harper Lee's only published work.
In this book a wide variety of people have been interviewed. And what is so special is this: each one finds something different to love about the book.
What a wonderful gift to all of us who have loved this book for a half century. I am going to be giving this book as a gift to some of my most special friends and relatives.
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James Hiller
5.0 out of 5 stars We Will Not Let Mockingbird Go
Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2010
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For many of us, our first exposure of the landmark novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" was in high school, as an assignment. For others, it was a recommendation from a friend, or a book group novel. However we come to Harper Lee's book "To Kill a Mockingbird", we never leave the book the same person. It crawls up inside of our brains, wraps itself around our hearts, and refuses to let go. leaving a lifetime of legacy, and remembrance, and reflection. Mary McDonagh Murphy's new book, based on a documentary she is working on, allows us to visit this place anew.

This book has two parts. The first part is a reflection of Murphy herself. Truly a devotee of the novel, Murphy talks about both the documentary and her thoughts about the movie and the book. Murphy writes her section with love and admiration, starting with Nelle herself. Nelle calls herself Boo Radley, and Murphy goes to great pains in the following paragraphs to assure us that Nelle is a warm gregarious person. Most of the information in Murphy's section isn't new, but it's still welcome nonetheless.

The following section is a collection of small essays written by a wide variety of people that all discuss the impact and legacy of Mockingbird. Oprah Winfrey, Tom Brokaw, and even the movie Scout Mary Badham all add their voices to this part (Badham confessing that she hadn't read the book until she had a daughter herself!). These essays are short and poignant, and talk very personally about how the book touched them, as well as reflected the larger struggle for civil rights in our country.

Nelle didn't write her second book, and America has been hungry ever since. This small book is highly recommended to celebrate 50 years of this classic novel. In the meantime, do what author Wally Lamb suggests in his foreward, watch the movie and read the book as well. We cannot visit Maycomb enough. We cannot sit on the Finch porch long enough. We cannot ever be tired of listening to Atticus defend Tom Robinson. We cannot let Mockingbird go. We will not let Mockingbird go.
44 people found this helpful
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Patty D.
4.0 out of 5 stars Scout, Atticus and Boo,
Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2015
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Interesting to read the way that the story touched each person who has read this book. Most people naturally love Scout, but the story was so much about her fearlessness and the way she took in the world around her.
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P. J. Mullins
5.0 out of 5 stars charming insights and opinions of Harper Lee
Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2012
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This book offers charming insights from various members of the literary world into the personality of Harper Lee, and gives us a glimpse into her life in the Deep South at a critical juncture in our nation's history regarding civil rights. Harper Lee had the true, deep, soulful courage to write about the inequality of the social structure of her world, and bring attention to it from the rest of the world. "To Kill a Mockingbird" is a book that most of us are required to read in school, and it draws us in from the very beginning and keeps us hanging on to the very end. It's not a didactic or preachy book, but it allows us to feel just as Scout did, from the simple soul of a child, and one who sees more clearly than most of the adults in her life.
The excerpts in this book are from people who have met Miss Lee, been awed by her humble personality. It's a wonderful book to explore further the lady behind this great work of American literature. I highly recommend reading it.
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Darla M. McCorkle
5.0 out of 5 stars Scout, Atticus & Boo
Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2011
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I really enjoyed this book and the documentary film "Hey, Boo" which goes with it. I saw the film while at Girlfriend Weekend 2011 in Jefferson, Texas and also met Mary Murphy. What a wonderful project she undertook!! This book leaves you wanting to see the film and hear more from Mary Murphy! To Kill A Mockingbird is a book everyone has something to say about and Mary Murphy brought that to us. Thoroughly entertaining! Sometimes when you are a fan you feel like you are in a special clique with other fans. This pulled an incredible number of people together to talk about Harper Lee's novel To Kill A Mockingbird and to discuss the things about it we have all discussed as fans. It was a pleasure to read the accounts of so many famous authors and personalities and their spin on TKAM. Thank you Mary Murphy for getting this done and bringing us "Hey, Boo" --you didn't have to bite off this project but I am so very happy that you did!
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Top reviews from other countries

Mys M
5.0 out of 5 stars Collected Interviews Revealing the Profound Impact of To Kill a Mockingbird
Reviewed in Canada on August 14, 2015
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This is a book of interviews conducted across the spectrum of race, gender, geographical location, occupation, and age, with people who have one thing in common — To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee meant something profound to them personally, as well as on a social and literary level.

Mary McDonagh Murphy tells us that the germ of this project came one day while sitting on her back porch rereading Mockingbird for the third time. It is a book to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the publication of the Mockingbird and each interview is unique. Oh, sure, there is more than one who loved Scout and wanted to be Scout; more than one wanted a dad like Atticus with that amazing sense of intuitive parenting, and belief in justice that he would take on an unpopular case knowing he would lose no matter how positively he proved his client innocent; more than one who, when reading as a 10-, 11-, 12-year-old boy, identified with Jem but was impacted by the beauty and grace of the writing. But each one had a personal experience with the book that influenced their beliefs, attitudes, relationships, and a life-long love of reading. Many of them were inspired to become authors, many of them from the South.

There is a wonderful Forward by Wally Lamb who taught for many years and began publishing his own novels in 1992, and has conducted writing workshops in maximum-security prisons. He is one of the interviewed Southern authors. Then, Part I is where Mary Murphy talks about Mockingbird, the reading of it, the writing in it and people who criticize the writing in it, the characters, the relevance of the book today, Harper Lee, and some gems from various interviews published herein.

Part II is the interviews. Wally Lamb wasn't a reader in his teens. He had a school book report coming up and "had already read the shortest books [he knew]". His sister'd "been yapping about this novel that she had just read that she'd liked", so he picked it up and, for the first time, realized that literature could "kidnap" you. When he became a high school teacher, he decided to try it with his kids and "it cast the same spell for [his] students as it had for [him]. Later on, when he began writing "to explore what you need to explore", he came to the conclusion that that was what Harper Lee had been doing.

"You start with who and what you know. You take a survey of the lay of the land that formed you and shaped you. And then you begin to lie about it. You tell one lie that turns into a different lie. And after awhile, those models sort of lift off and become their own people. . .

And when you weave an entire network of lies, what you're really doing. . . is, by telling lies you are trying to arrive at a deeper truth. Your work is no longer factual, but it's true. It's true not only for you and your own experience, your singular experience, but it also hopefully becomes true for other people."

There's Oprah's wonderful retelling of her own experience of how Mockingbird was the first book she started pushing on everyone she met. She had borrowed it from the library on the librarian's recommendation; she was too poor to be able to purchase books. Although she left the South when she was 6 and never personally experienced segregation, she "always recognized that life would have been so different for [her] had [she] been raised in a segregated environment". She liked the movie (not everyone interviewed did), and when she found herself seated to next Gregory Peck at a Hollywood luncheon for Quincy Jones, she could only think of him as Atticus and kept asking him about Scout.

"You just liked Scout. You connected with her. I liked her energy. I liked the spirit of her. I liked the freshness of her. I liked the fact that she was so curious. I loved this character so much. . . she knew who she was and was very assertive and had a lot of confidence and believed in herself and was learning about this whole world of racism in such a way that I could feel myself also experiencing or learning about it — my eyes opening as her eyes were opening to it."

Of course, later in life, she wanted the book for her wildly popular Book Club, and although she wasn't able to get Harper Lee to come on her show, she did enjoy the privilege of having lunch with her in NYC, and talks about what a special time she enjoyed with her. When Oprah opened her school in South Africa, people wanted to contribute and asked what they could bring. Her response? "Bring [your] favourite book"; and now, they "probably have a hundred copies of this book". Each person who brought it wrote inside the cover about why it was an important book to them. Each one says something totally different.

Once again, I've been introduced to authors I've not heard of before and am impressed enough to want to purchase books written by them. Lee Smith (The Last Girls (2002) and On Agate Hill (2008) and 10 others when she was interviewed) caught me by surprise. Born in Grundy, Virginia, what she calls "the mountain South", she has a totally different experience: there were no blacks where she lived. Their class system was based on who lived "in the town and who lived in the hollers", but the South described in Mockingbird fascinated her. For her, it brought a "whole new awareness of people who were other, and what they suffered because of it. . . [it] changed the way [she] thought about race, class, and discrimination". She also talked about the novel being banned by the Hanover County school board because a prominent physician had said it was inappropriate for children to read because of the rape issue. She was working for a Richmond, Va, newspaper at the time which had said,

"any child who wanted a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird should write him a personal letter and tell him why, and we would send them one. Well, I was the one who sent 'em. . . and basically all I did was address copies of To Kill a Mockingbird and send them out to every child in Hanover County. I thought it was fabulous . . . I was proud to be doing this."

Just about in the middle of this book is an interview granted by Alice Finch Lee, Nelle's older sister. She tells quite a bit of family history and how she didn't really relate to her sister until they were both adults. She always refers to her sister as Nelle Harper. She tells her impressions of Truman Capote and how everyone in Monroeville thought they were in the book and that people from other small towns thought that Maycomb was based on their town.

There were many other interviews with people who impressed me with their experiences of reading Mockingbird and gave profound insights into the novel, but the final one in the book, I thought, was the most enlightening. Andrew Young, former US ambassador to the UN, former congressman from Georgia, and former mayor of Atlanta, never read the book. Just as he couldn't read Richard Wright, had a hard time with Roots and The Diary of Anne Frank, couldn't read big books on the Holocaust. He couldn't deal with them emotionally. "They made [him] too bitter". He had "no intellectual curiosity" about Mockingbird — he'd "been through it with [his] life". He talks about his experiences with the civil rights movement, and before that, as a minister in Thomasville, Georgia, where he was asked to run "a voter registration drive to encourage people to vote for Eisenhower". When he asked why, he was told that Eisenhower would "appoint judges . . . of integrity and the most intelligent people in the South. And he will listen to us". He cites instances where Eisenhower appointees supported the civil rights movement, upheld the Constitution, supported desegregation, and protected the right of blacks to march. He called these judges Atticus Finches. He says that To Kill a Mockingbird

"gave us hope that justice could prevail. . . that's one of the things that makes it a great story — [it] was an act of protest, but it was [also] an act of humanity. It was saying that we're not all like this. There are people who rise above their prejudices and even above the law."

I learned a lot of things I didn't know before about history and people, and about the different reasons people read this book many times and always take away something new that is uniquely theirs. It's not about searching for Harper Lee, or controversy about Go Set A Watchman; it's about real people sharing their personal, deep feelings about an amazing book and how it impacted a country at exactly the right time in history.
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Cub
5.0 out of 5 stars Buy it
Reviewed in Canada on March 2, 2020
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Its not GWTW but its very good
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