National Endowment for the Arts • READER'S GUIDE HARPER LEE'S MuseuiriandLibrary V "There's no substitute for the love of language, for the beauty of an English sentence.There's no substitute for struggling, if a struggle is needed, to make an English sentence as beautiful as it should be." —HARPER LEE Preface Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is the rare American novel that can be discovered with excitement in adolescence and reread into adulthood without fear of disappointment. Few novels so appealingly evoke the daily world of childhood in a way that seems convincing whether you are sixteen or sixty-six. Lee tells two deftly paired stories set in a small Southern town: one focused on lawyer Atticus Finch's defense of an unjustly accused man, the other on his bright, bratty daughters gradual discovery of her own goodness. For many young people this novel becomes their first big read, the grown-up story that all later books will be measured against. The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts designed to revitalize the role of literary reading in American popular culture. Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, a. 2004 NEA report, identified a critical decline in reading for pleasure among American adults.The Big Read aims to address this issue directly by providing citizens with the opportunity to read and discuss a single book within their communities. A great book combines enlightenment with enchantment. It awakens our imagination and enlarges our humanity. It can even offer harrowing insights that somehow console and comfort us.Whether you're a regular reader already or a nonreader making up for lost time, thank you for joining the Big Read. c$0^ Hfa*' Dana Gioia Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts Harper Lee . -Has & ■ jV**j " '->^x.*y 'Atticus said to Jem one day, 'I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.' That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. 'Your father's right,' she said. 'Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'" -HARPER LEE ',«*''" ■*:"• ■ from To Kill a Mockingbird m ■ Hra I Mocking mmmm m w^ H ■ j».i HAILPB* LB * . 2 THE BIG READ • National Kndowiiicnr for the Arts Introduction to the Novel Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird begins at the end. "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow," writes the now-grown Jean Louise "Scout" Finch in the novel's first sentence. By the time Jem finally gets around to breaking his arm more than 250 pages later, most readers will have forgotten they were ever warned. This echoes the way the whole book unfolds — in no special hurry, with lifelike indirection. Nothing happens all by itself. The book's two plots inch forward along parallel tracks, only converging near the end. The first plot revolves around Arthur "Boo" Radley, who lives in a shuttered house down the street from the Finches and is rumored to be some kind of monster. Scout, Jem, and their next-door neighbor Dill engage in pranks, trying to make Boo show himself. Unexpectedly, Boo reciprocates their interest with a series of small gifts, until he ultimately steps oflFhis porch and into their lives when they need him most. The second story concerns Scout and Jem's father, the attorney Atticus Finch. The local judge appoints him to defend a black man, Tom Robinson, who is falsely accused of raping a white woman. Atticus suspects he will lose the case, but he faces the challenge just the same, at one point heroically stepping between his client and a lynch mob. Along with its twin plot lines, To Kill a Mockingbird has two broad themes: tolerance and justice. Lee treats the first through the childrens' fear of their mysterious neighbor. She illustrates the second with Atticus' courage in defending Robinson to the best of his ability, despite the racial prejudices of their small Southern town. Tying the stories together is a simple but profound piece of advice Atticus gives Scout: "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it." By the end of the novel, Scout has done exactly that — guessed at the pain not only beneath Tom Robinson's black skin, but also under the fishbelly pallor of her neighbor. National Endowment for the Arts "THE BIG READ 3 Harper Lee (b. 1 926) If Nelle Harper Lee ever wanted proof that fame has its drawbacks, she didn't have to look farther than her childhood neighbor, Truman Capote. After her enormously successful first novel, her life has been as private as Capotes was public. Nelle — her first name is her grandmother's spelled backward — was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama. Her mother, Frances Cunningham Finch Lee, was a homemaker. Her father, Amasa Cole Lee, practiced law. Before A. C. Lee became a title lawyer, he once defended two black men accused of murdering a white storekeeper. Both clients, a father and son, were hanged. As a child, Harper Lee was an unruly tomboy. She fought on the playground. She talked back to teachers. She was bored with school and resisted any sort of conformity. The character of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird would have liked her. In high school Lee was fortunate to have a gifted English teacher, Gladys Watson Burkett, who introduced her to challenging literature and the rigors of writing well. Lee loved 19th-century British authors best, and once said that her ambition was to become "the Jane Austen of south Alabama." Unable to fit in with the sorority she joined at the University of Alabama, she found a second home on the campus newspaper. Eventually she became editor-in-chief of the The 1930s Over 25% of labor force unemployed during worst years of the Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt wins presidency with promise of his "New Deal" in 1932. The Scottsboro Boys' trials last from 1931-37. Nelle Harper Lee is 6 years old when they begin. Jackie Robinson signs baseball contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers, 1947. President Truman ends segregation in the military and discrimination in federal hiring. Harper Lee moves to New York City to become a writer. The 1950s Brown vs. Board of Education rules school segregation unconstitutional. Rosa Parks refuses to surrender her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. Lee accompanies Truman Capote to Kansas as "researchist" for his book In Cold Blood. 4 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts Rammer Jammer, a quarterly humor magazine on campus. She entered the law school, but she "loathed" it. Despite her father's hopes that she would become a local attorney like her sister Alice, Lee went to New York to pursue her writing. She spent eight years working odd jobs before she finally showed a manuscript to Tay Hohoff, an editor at J.B. Lippincott. At this point, it still resembled a string of stories more than the novel that Lee had intended. Under Hohoff s guidance, two and a half years of rewriting followed. When the novel was finally ready for publication, the author opted for the name "Harper Lee" on the cover, because she didn't want to be misidentified as "Nellie." Harper Lee, while visiting Monroeville, Alabama, 1 96 1 To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1 960 to highly favorable reviews and quickly climbed the bestseller lists, where it remained for 88 weeks. In 1961, the novel won the Pulitzer Prize. H African-American citizens in the rear of the bus in compliance with South Carolina segregation law. The early 1960s The mid-1960s To Kill a Mockingbird published on July 11, 1960. The film follows in 1 962 and wins Oscars for best actor, screenwriter, and set design. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech delivered, 1963. He wins the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1 964, enforcing the constitutional right to vote. Malcolm X is assassinated in 1965. Despite rumors of a second Southern novel, Lee never finishes another book. National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 5 Though fans of the book waited for a second novel, it never came. Lee later researched a book, similar to Capote' j" In Cold Blood, about a part-time minister in Alexander City, Alabama, accused of killing five people for their insurance money and later himself murdered by a victims relative. She dropped the project in the 1990s. In the meantime, To Kill a Mockingbird has sold more than 30 million copies in 1 8 languages. According to biographer Charles J. Shields, Lee was unprepared for the amount of personal attention associated with writing a bestseller. Ever since, she has led a quiet and guardedly private life. As Sheriff Tate says of Boo Radley, "draggin him with his shy ways into the limelight — to me, that's a sin." So it would be with Harper Lee. From her, To Kill a Mockingbird is gift enough. Harper Lee attends a Los Angeles Public Library awards dinner in her honor, 2005 The Friendship of Harper Lee and Truman Capote Nelle Harper Lee and Truman Capote became friends in the early 1 930s as kindergarteners in Monroeville, Alabama. They lived next door to each other: Capote with aunts and uncles, Lee with her parents and three siblings. From the start they loved reading and recognized in each other "an apartness," as Capote later expressed it. When Lee's father gave them an old Underwood typewriter, they began writing original stories. Although Capote moved to New York City in the third grade to join his mother and 6 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts stepfather, he returned to Monroeville most summers, eventually providing the inspiration for Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird. In 1948 Capote published his first novel, OtherVoices, Other Rooms. Around that time, Lee quit law school and joined Capote in New York to work at becoming a writer too. Years of menial jobs followed until To Kill a Mockingbird was ready for publication. Capote read the manuscript and made editorial suggestions. Lee, in her turn, accompanied him to Kansas to help research In Cold Blood. After To Kill a Mockingbird was published, Capote resented Lees success, and could have tried harder to dispel baseless rumors that the novel was as much his work as hers.Their friendship continued during the 1 960s and 70s, but Capotes drug and alcohol abuse strained the relationship. Later he would stop publishing and sink into self-parody, sponging off high society and making endless rounds of the talk-show circuit. When Capote died in 1 984, Lee confided to friends that she had not heard from him in years. National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 7 Historical Context: The Jim Crow South ^»r Former slaves and their children had little assurance that their post-Civil War freedoms would stick. By the 1890s, a system of laws and regulations commonly referred to as u Jim Crow" had emerged; by 1910, every state of the former Confederacy had upheld this legalized segregation and disenfranchisement. Most scholars believe the term originated around 1830, when a white minstrel performer blackened his face, danced a jig, and sang the lyrics to the song "Jump Jim Crow." At first the word was synonymous with such then-innocuous terms as black, colored, or Negro, but it later became attached to this specific arsenal of repressive laws. During the Jim Crow era, local officials instituted curfews for blacks and posted "Whites Only" and "Colored" signs on parks, schools, hotels, water fountains, restrooms, and all modes of transportation. Laws against miscegenation or "race- mixing" deemed all marriages between white and black not only void but illegal. Almost as bad as the injustice of Jim Crow was the inconsistency with which local law enforcement applied it. Backtalk would rate a laugh in one town, a lynching just over the county line. 00 puwroftrir Kisusnr, ax«>? ^""^ ^\3^ '^^fWT-. ke Sheet music cover illustration with caricatures of ragged African-American musicians and dancers, c. 1 847 Though violence used to subjugate blacks was nothing new, its character changed under Jim Crow. Southern white supremacist groups the Ku Klux Klan reached a membership of six million. Mob violence was encouraged. Torture became a public spectacle. White families brought their children as witnesses to lynchings, and vendors hawked the body parts of victims as souvenirs. Between 1 889 and 1930, over 3,700 men and women were reported lynched in the United States, many for challenging Jim Crow. All this anger and fear led to the notorious trials of the Scottsboro Boys (1931-37), an ordeal of sensational convictions, reversals, 8 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts Top, passengers lined up in front of segregated buses at a Louisville, Tennessee, bus station, 1943; Above, a segregated drinking fountain. 'Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand." — ATTICUS FINCH in To Kill a Mockingbird and retrials for nine young African American men accused of raping two white women on a train from Tennessee to Alabama. The primary testimony came from the older woman, a prostitute trying to avoid prosecution herself Juries composed exclusively of white men ignored clear evidence that the women had suffered no injury. As in To Kill a Mockingbird, a black man charged with raping a white woman was not accorded the usual presumption of innocence. In January of 1932, the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed seven out of eight death sentences against the adult defendants. A central figure in the case was an Atticus-like judge, James E. Horton, a member of the Alabama Bar who eventually defied public sentiment to overturn a guilty verdict. Despite these and many more injustices, black Americans found ingenious ways to endure and resist. Education, religion, and music became their solace and salvation until, in the organized political action of the Civil Rights Movement, Jim Crow's harsh music finally began to fade. National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 9 How the Novel Came to be Written Any claims for To Kill a Mockingbird as a book that changed history could not have seemed more farfetched one winter night in 1958, as Nelle Harper Lee huddled in her outer-borough New York City apartment trying to finesse her unruly episodic manuscript into some semblance of a cohesive novel. All but drowning in multiple drafts of the same material, Lee suddenly threw open a window and scattered five years of work onto the dirty snow below Did Lee really intend to destroy To Kill a Mockingbird? Well never know. Fortunately in the next moment, she called her editor. Lippincotts formidable Tay Hohoff prompdy sent her outside to gather all the pages back — thus rescuing To Kill a Mockingbird from yet another slush pile. The novel had its origins in Lees hometown of Monroeville, Alabama — the small, Southern town upon which the fictional Maycomb is based. Her fathers unsuccessful defense of a black man and his son accused of murder, in addition to the Scottsboro Boys' trials and another notorious interracial rape case, helped to shape Harper Lee in the Monroeville, Alabama courthouse, 1961 Lees budding social conscience and sense of a dramatic story. Along with his legal practice, Lees father published and edited the town newspaper. His regard for the written word impacted Lees sensibility as surely as his respect for the law. Lee would name her idealized vision of her father after Titus Pomponius Atticus, a friend of the Roman orator Cicero renowned as, according to Lee, u a wise, learned and humane man." For a long time, Lee called her work in progress Atticus. This arguably marked an | THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts ® ® ® ® <* [ improvement over her first title, Go Set a Watchman, but once she fastened on To Kill a Mockingbird she did not look back. Lippincott finally published the book on July 11,1 960, by which time an unprecedented four national mail-order book clubs had already selected the novel for its readers. The first line of The Washington Post's review echoed many similar notices that praised the novel for its moral impact: "A hundred pounds of sermons on tolerance, or an equal measure of invective deploring the lack of it, will weigh far less in the scale of enlightenment than a mere 1 8 ounces of new fiction bearing the tide To Kill a Mockingbird. " Eighty-eight weeks later, the novel still perched on the hardcover bestseller list. During that time, it had won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the hearts of American readers. One can't help wondering how literary history might have been different had Harper Lee thrown her manuscript out the window on a slighdy windier night. "Writing is a process of self- discipline you must learn before you can call yourself a writer.There are people who write, but I think they're quite different from people who must write." —HARPER LEE from a 1 964 interview Lee with her father, 1 96 1 National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ I 1 To Adapt a Mockingbird Mary Badham and Gregory Peck review the script on the set of the film To Kill a Mockingbird, 1 962 In 1962, To Kill a Mockingbird was adapted for the screen. It is often considered one of the truest literary adaptations in film history. After Universal Studios bought the rights to Lee's novel, they first offered Rock Hudson the role of Atticus Finch. But producer Alan Pakula didn't want Hudson for the part; he wanted Gregory Peck. When Pakula sent a copy of the novel to Peck, the tall, dignified Californian read it in one night and accepted, and the studio agreed to finance the film. With Peck on board, the next piece of business was turning the novel into a screenplay. Pakula offered Harper Lee the chance to write it, but she wasn't interested. She pleaded responsibility to her second novel and, with characteristic humility, said she would welcome an experienced screenwriter's trimming. Gregory Peck and Harper Lee on the set, 1 962 When playwright Horton Foote landed the screenplay assignment instead, all worked out for the best. Foote's upbringing in a small Texas town and knack for scenes of quiet dramatic intensity were ideal for the project. At Pakula's urging, Foote compressed the novel's three years into one in order to give the film a sense of unity. As Foote has said, "That decision was very freeing to me. It gave me a chance to explore the architecture that she had created for the novel and not feel that I was ruining anything or tampering anything essential." He also heightened the intensity of the novels social criticism, reflecting the growing momentum of the Civil Rights Movement. In spite of these and other significant changes, Lee later praised Foote's screenplay: "If the integrity of a film adaptation is measured by the degree to which the novelists intent is preserved, Mr. Foote's screenplay should be studied as a classic." Next, the producers had to find the perfect set for Maycomb, Alabama. They wanted to film in Lee's native Monroeville, which between the To Kill a Mockingbird is about bigotry... For me the most beautiful scene is the moment when the Judge drops by to ask Atticus to take the case in defense of Tom Robinson. Casually put and casually answered, the question needed no answer. The judge knew it would not be possible for Atticus to say no. As for Jem and Scout, they learn a sense of honor from Atticus." —GREGORY PECK book's setting in 1935 and the shoot in 1961 had lost much of its architectural charm. Wisely, the design team instead transplanted a street of shotgun shacks to the studio back lot, and recreated Maycomb in Southern California. The set designers would win Academy Awards for their work, as would Peck and Foote. Nominations went to actress Mary Badham, cinematographer Russell Harlan, and composer Elmer Bernstein. The picture itself lost only to Lawrence of Arabia. National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ | 3 Discussion Questions Why do you think Harper Lee chose as her novel s epigraph this quote from Charles Lamb: "Lawyers, I suppose, were children once"? Why does the adult Scout begin her narrative with Jems broken arm and a brief family history? How does Boo Radley's past history of violence foreshadow his method of protecting Jem and Scout? Does this aggression make him more, or less, of a sympathetic character? How does the town of Maycomb function as a character with its own personality, rather than merely as a backdrop for the novels events? Atticus teaches Scout that compromise is not bending the law, but "an agreement reached by mutual consent." Does she apply or reject this definition of compromise? What are examples of her obedience to and defiance of this principle? 6. The novel takes place during the Great Depression. How do the class divisions and family quarrels heighten racial tensions in Maycomb? 7. Atticus believes that to understand life from someone else's perspective, we must "walk in his or her shoes." From what other perspectives does Scout see her fellow townspeople? . 8. How does Atticus quiedy protest Jim Crow laws even before Tom Robinson's trial? 9. What does Jem learn when Atticus forces him to read to Mrs. Dubose as a punishment? Why does the lawyer regard this woman as the "bravest person" he ever knew? 10. Since their mother is dead, several women — Calpurnia, Miss Maudie, and Aunt Alexandra — function as mother figures to Scout and Jem. Discuss the ways these three women influence Scout's growing understanding of what it means to be a Southern "lady." I 4 THE BIG READ " National Endowment for the Arts 1 1. Why does Atticus Finch risk his reputation, his friendships, and his career to take Tom Robinsons case? Do you think he risks too much by putting his children in harms way? 12. What elements of this novel did you find funny, memorable, or inspiring? Are there any characters whose beliefs or actions impressed or surprised you? Did any events lead you to revisit childhood memories or see them in a new light? 13. Adult readers may focus so much on the novel's politics that they may neglect the coming-of-age story. What does Scout learn, and how does she change in the course of her narrative? If you'd like to read works by authors admired by Harper Lee, you might enjoy: Jane Austen's Mansfield Park (1814) Truman Capote's The Grass Harp (1951) Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) If you'd like to read other books set in the South, you might enjoy: Olive Ann Burns' Cold Sassy Tree (1984) Zora Neale Hurston s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1 937) Carson McCullers' The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940) If you'd like to read other coming-of-age novels, you might enjoy: Louisa May Alcott's Oft/e Women (1869) John Knowles* A Separate Peace (1959) Any writer worth his saJt writes to please himself... It's a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent." —HARPER LEE from a 1964 interview National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ | 5 Additional Resources Other works by Harper Lee In the 1 960s, Lee published three essays in American magazines, which can be read at Jane Kansas' Web site: www. mockingbird. chebucto.org/otherwork.html. Lee published her fourth essay in 1985, originally presnted as a paper at the 1983 Alabama History and Heritage Festival. "Christmas to Me." McCalls 89 (December 1961): 63. "Love — In Other Words." Vogue 137 (15 April 1961): 64-5. "When Children Discover America." McCalls 92 (August 1965): 76-9. "Romance and High Adventure." Clearings in the Thicket: An Alabama Humanities Reader. Ed. Jerry Elijah Brown. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1985. 13-20. Interviews with Harper Lee In the early 1 960s, Lee gave many interviews before she chose to step out of the public eye. One of them was first published in Roy Newquists book, Counterpoint, another in Rogue magazine. Both can be found at www. mockingbird, chebucto. org/ interviews.html. Books about Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird Bloom, Harold, ed. Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1 997. Johnson, Claudia Durst. To Kill a Mockingbird: Threatening Boundaries. New York: Twayne, 1994. Shields, Charles J. Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee. New York: Henry Holt, 2006. Mary Badham and Gregory Peck | 6 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts ^^C^^ The National Endowment for the Arts is a public agency dedicated to supporting ^^■^^ excellence in the arts — both new and established — bringing the arts to all Americans, ^^mS and providing leadership in arts education. Established by Congress in 1965 as an national independent agency of the federal government, the Endowment is the nations largest endowment annual hinder of the arts, bringing great art to all 50 states, including rural areas, inner cities, and military bases. FOR THE ARTS ij£ MuseurriandLibrary The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support ••": for the nations 122,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The Institutes mission is to create strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas. The Institute works at the national level and in coordination with state and local organizations to sustain heritage, culture, and knowledge; enhance learning and innovation; and support professional development. am MIDWEST Arts Midwest connects people throughout the Midwest and the world to meaningful arts opportunities, sharing creativity, knowledge, and understanding across boundaries. One of six non-profit regional arts organizations in the United States, Arts Midwest's history spans more than 25 years. &j fM9JEWJV£P Boeing is the world's leading aerospace company and the largest combined manufacturer of commercial jediners and military aircraft. As a leading contractor to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), Boeing works together with its DoD customers to provide U.S. Armed Forces and U.S. allies around the world with fully integrated high-performing systems solutions and support. Additional support for the Big Read has also been provided by the WK. Kellogg Foundation in partnership with Community Foundations of America. Works Cited Excerpts from To Kill a Mockingbird, Copyright © 1960, 1988 by Harper Lee, are reproduced by permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Chafe, William H., Raymond Gavins, Robert Korstad, eds. Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South. New York: New Press, 2001. Culligan, Glendy. "Listen to that Mockingbird." Rev. of To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. The Washington Post, Times Herald 3 July 1960: E6. Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. 1960. New York: HarperCollins, 2002. Newquist, Roy. "An Interview with Harper Lee." March 1964. Online Posting. To Kill a Mockingbird and Harper Lee. 9 January 2006 . Shields, Charles J. Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2006. Acknowledgments David Kipen, NEA Director of Literature Writers: Charles J. Shields, author of Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee; David Kipen and Erika Koss for the National Endowment for the Arts, with preface by Dana Gioia Series Editor: Erika Koss for the National Endowment for the Arts Special thanks to Susannah Bielak, Susan Chandler, Maryrose Flanigan, Liz Edgar Hernandez, and Jon Peede Graphic Design: Fletcher Design/Washington, D.C. Image Credits Cover Portrait: John Sherffius for the Big Read. Inside coven Bettmann/Corbis. Page 1: Photo by Vance Jacobs. Page 2: Northern mockingbird image by Jeremy Woodhouse/Getty Images; first edition book cover reproduced courtesy of HarperCollins. Page 5: top, image by Donald Uhrbrock/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images; bottom, image by Hank Walker/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images. Page 6: Image by Katy Winn/Corbis. Page 7: Both photos, Getty Images. Page 8: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Page 9: top, image by Esther Bubley/Getty Images; bottom, Bettmann/Corbis. Page 10: top, image by Donald Uhrbrock/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images; bottom, Royalty Free/Corbis. Page 11: Image by Donald Uhrbrock/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images. Page 12: top, Universal Studios/Courtesy of Getty Images; bottom, Bettmann/Corbis. Page 16: Bettmann/Corbis. This publication is published by: National Endowment for the Arts • 1 100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W • Washington, D.C. 20506-0001 (202) 682-5400 • www.nea.gov www.NEABigRead.org I3B *8S SB Hal HH|m ■■■■■■■■■■ The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience." — ATTICUS FINCH in To Kill a Mockingbird NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS ••>;; INSTITUTED 2, Museum, ^Library .•Vf SERVICES 77?f 5/^" 7&W is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Ans designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The NEA presents The Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Libraij Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest. The Big Read brings together partners across the country to encourage reading for pleasure and enlightenment. A great nation deserves great art. The Big Read for military communities is made possible by &£FJEJA/£Z