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My book club's youngest member made me rethink a classic I've read 3 times
Last Tuesday at our monthly meeting in Arlington, a 19-year-old college student said she hated To Kill a Mockingbird because Atticus was just doing the bare minimum for a Black man in that town. I've read that book three times over 20 years and always saw him as a hero. She pointed out that he never actually questioned the system, he just did his job well within it. That conversation stuck with me all week and now I'm wondering if my book club has been stuck in the same old interpretations. Has anyone else had a younger member completely flip how you see a book you thought you knew inside out?
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eric3591mo ago
Listened to a podcast last month where a teacher talked about this exact thing. She said her high school students read Mockingbird and a lot of them see Atticus the same way, as a good man who still worked inside a broken setup. She said that is actually the point now for younger readers, that doing your job well is not the same as fighting the thing. I get why that hits hard when you grew up seeing him as the hero. It makes you go back and read the whole town differently, not just him. Your club might want to pick books that push on this stuff on purpose instead of staying comfy.
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