Wake up Boo!

I've just finished reading 'To Kill A Mockingbird' - I'd read it a few years ago, but it was better this time round. The trial on which the whole novel centres is a bit too conveniently cut-and-dried, as the plot demands - the sudden revelation that Tom Robinson is a cripple reads like something out of a very bad courtroom TV movie - but its charms are legion, not least the wonderful evocation of childhood. Harper Lee manages to convey the world as it's seen through Scout's naive and innocent eyes, but also to hint at the unperceived deeper and darker significance of the events which unfold; and to incorporate humour and warmth into a novel which deals with such a weighty issue as racial intolerance. Perhaps it's no surprise she never wrote anything else, even if it is still something to lament.