To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

This post was written by my son Derek as a writing assignment.  For another review by Derek you can go to Farenheit 451

In her book to To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses a rape case to express the relationships among four different people groups in the southern town, Maycomb: the white middle class, the white country folk, the poor whites, and the black people. The story is told through the eyes of nine year old Scout Louise who lives in the middle class.

The middle class does not usually associate with the white farmers. When Scout tries to invite a farm boy over for dinner, her Aunt Alexandria disapproves, saying that those type of people are unclean and would not fit in with the neighborhood kids. Many of the middle class kids share the same opinion. In school, the teacher comments on a farm boy's poverty, and lack of having enough food, while the rest of the class show indifference saying that it is normal for him.

The middle class and the white poor families treat each other with a little more hostility. The town kids show contempt toward the poor kids when they show up to school only on the first day just to get attendance. The impoverished blame everyone else for their troubles, instead of the poor parents who do not take care of their families. Because of the irresponsibility of the poor parents, the town folks do not respect them.

Because her father Atticus is not racist, Scout Louise holds no hatred for the poor black community, unlike the rest of the white populace. Though the separate white communities are different from each other they choose to stick with their race and defend a cruel white poor father in a court case where he is unjustly condemning a black man. After the rest of the white groups help the impoverished white man win the case, they tell him to crawl back into his hole where he came from.

In conclusion, Harper Lee tries to show the lines that seperate of all the different communities. Middle class, poor and country whites and the black people. The white communities treat each other differently, with either indifference or disdain. However, these differences between the white groups are overlooked when they have to choose between a guilty white man and an innocent black man. They side with the guilty white man. Even though they all despise him they believe they must stick with their skin color even though they know what he did was wrong. To Kill A Mockingbird provides an insight into these racial and class relationships in a Southern town in the 1940's.

Book Review for George Washington Carver by John Perry

This is the third book in the Christian Encounters Series that I've reviewed (see also Galileo and J.R.R. Tolkien ). George Washington Carver is one of those historical figures that I've heard about most of my life (especially during Black History month) but never really sat down and read his life story. It's worth reading.

John Perry traces Carver's life from being raised by a white family after his mother escaped slavery, growing up sickly and frail, getting educated despite the limitations imposed on black people of the time and finally ending up as a professor at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

Carver's life is inspiring because he rallied forth and succeeded when he had so many reasons to quit. First he was so sick most of his childhood that apparently he never fully developed in puberty.  His voice never changed.  People were often surprised to hear a light, soft voice when he spoke.  He was slight of build and walked with a stoop.  He never could participate in athletics and never married-probably due to his infirmity.

In addition to physical obstacles, he was only allowed to go to a segregated school with a black teacher who barely knew more than his students. Soon Carver outpaced the teacher and was traveling miles away on foot to attend a white school and ultimately college in order to get the education his intellect demanded and deserved. He worked in laundromats not only to pay for college but also secondary school.

In time, he came to be offered many lucrative teaching positions at white universities that paid high salaries but Carver felt it was his duty to teach at Tuskegee and help develop the academic and agricultural skills that his own community needed in order to break the vicious cycle of grinding poverty that afflicted so many of them.

Perry's picture of Carver is very evenhanded. He shows a man with a zeal for the Lord (throughout his career he held Bible studies at Tuskegee that were always packed with students-he fervently believed all progress must be built on “the Rock”: faith in Jesus Christ) and a fiery passion for African Americans to enable them to become skilled and educated so that they could be independent and self sufficient members of society and not be dependent on the state or charity.   I believe Carver would be saddened if he were alive today to witness how President Johnston's welfare system has succeeded in sabotaging many of the inroads African Americans had made in this area-not only among the black community but with all races and cultures in our present day society-as the state dole has done in Europe of which we're now seeing the fruits thereof in the riots of London and the bankruptcy of Greece and Ireland)

Still, this fiery man had his blind spots and idiosyncrasies. He worked tirelessly finding hundreds of uses for the sweet potato and the peanut but refused to record his work using a conventional scientific method. This, of course, made it impossible for other scientists to study his work to any measurable degree.  Furthermore, he wanted the school to furnish him with a hugely expensive laboratory for his own personal use that did not involve any of his teaching.

Booker T. Washington was the president of Tuskegee at the time and he and Carver butted heads for most of their respective careers. By Perry's account, Washington was the more patient and diplomatic one while Carver was the eccentric, flamboyant scientist who wanted nothing to interfere with his work but insisted on the school paying for it.

One of the most beneficial things Carver did for the black community was act as a spokesman. Carver was friends with President Roosevelt and Henry Ford, both of who supported him and invited him to speak at public gatherings. Apparently Carver was a brilliant and beloved speaker who held his audiences spell bound for hours on end. Yet in most places he traveled to he was subject to segregation and racial slurs. The most impressive attribute Carver showed was his patience and Christian submission to cruelty. His goal was to show black people's equality and abilities through demonstration of that intellect and ability not by angry words.

That is personally a great inspiration to me. How many times have I wanted to give back as I received? Carver was a beacon of Christ's example on earth. Was Jesus not also rejected and despised and even condemned to death, though innocent, yet returned hate with love and cruelty with forgiveness? No doubt at the end of Carver's long life he was greeted by his Savior with  “Well done good and faithful servant, enter into your rest.”

As with the other books in this series, George Washington Carver is an easy, quick, but highly informative and inspiring book that I think people of all cultures would enjoy and benefit by as I did.


I received a complimentary copy of this book by Thomas Nelson pub in exchange for my honest review.

Book Review for September's Autumn by Sandra Newberry

 September's Autumn by Sandra Newberry is fictional story written as part personal story and part documentary. There's basically two parts to the book: the personal and the historical. The personal centers around a girl named Autumn. Taking place in Mississippi in the 1920's, Autumn's family is a group of house and field servants to a woman named Penelope and her husband.

Autumn's grandparents were slaves prior to the Civil War and her grandmother would often share stories of that time period as the family picked cotton under the sweltering sun. Autumn and her sister's reactions to these stories are mixed. Autumn listens with a mingled sense of interest and shame not wanting to hear but curiosity compelling her to. Her sister is merely annoyed and impatient at her grandmother for dredging up a history that holds no relevance for her.

Autumn herself has a special relationship with her mistress, Penelope. Penelope dotes on her like a daughter. Indeed, Autumn could pass for her daughter for she's as light skinned as the elderly woman. Newberry writes at length on the mutual dependence yet fear, prejudice and mistrust the two races have for each other.

The other part to Newberry's story is about twenty black men who are murdered in horrible, despicable ways by the Klu Klux Klan. Newberry goes into so much detail of the names and families of the victims as well as the history of the KKK and the perpetrators of the crimes that I looked up the particulars on the web to see if she was recounting actual crimes taken from history. I couldn't find anything on the men she wrote about but I think that Newberry must have thoroughly researched her subject to give such a convincing account.

I don't know why Newberry chose such a subject to write about. On the one hand I think it's important for America to remember a sad epoch of our history so we don't repeat it. On the other hand, racial prejudice is not what is depriving the  black community of opportunity these days. If a writer really wanted to help African Americans as well as an ever growing population of white society, they need to study the current reasons people are poor. It's not a lack of opportunity but a lack of vision and spiritual integrity.

I taught for ten years at a high poverty/minority school. Every student was given the same education. There was no segregation, many of the teachers were black as well as the principal. The problem I saw was how many of our children were born out of wed lock with many siblings, each with a different father and everybody living off of the nanny state: food stamps, welfare and government housing. 

  The current biggest cause of death among young black Americans is not the Klu Klux Klan. It's gang warfare and drugs. I don't think it's coincidental that after reading this book I read a book called Courageous that deals with just such a problem and its roots in fatherlessness. (You can read about it in my next review.)

Other than that observation and the fact that Newberry equates racial prejudice with prejudice and violence against homosexuals (which, of course, not only betrays the actual date of the book but I wonder how many black people would appreciate the comparison) I would have to say she has done a good job with this book.

Newberry's writing style is eloquent and fluid. I also looked up information about her but could find nothing. If this is a first book for her I wish her luck in her future endeavors. I think she has a lot of potential.

I received a complimentary copy of  this book as a member of the
Dorrance Publishing Book Review Team. Visit dorrancebookstore.com   if you would like to buy a copy of the book or to learn how you can become a member of the Book Review Team.