I spend a lot of my time involved with digital communication – blogs, tweets and multimedia. But occasionally I have to lose myself in an old-fashioned book.
I recently finished Tallgrass by Sandra Dallas and will start soon on Harper Lee‘s classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. I could read them digitally if I could pry the Kindle away from my wife, Mimi. But sometimes it’s good to just stretch out with a good book and turn some actual pages.
I’m participating in the annual Linn Area Reads program of the Metro Library Network. People are encouraged to read these two books and participate in a series of programs reflecting on them. We started with a March visit from Sandra Dallas, author of Tallgrass, March 1 at Theatre Cedar Rapids. I hadn’t read the book when she visited (wish I had), but I finished it last week.
Related programs continued Saturday at Collins Road Theater with a screening of the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird. I hadn’t seen the movie or read the book in years. I look forward to reading the book again. Usually the movie version of a great book disappoints me. But with this one, you marvel at the storytelling skill of either version.
I’m trying to recall whether specific scenes from the movie were even in the book and how the book treated them. I’m trying to recall whether anyone ever nailed a role better than Gregory Peck did the role of Atticus Finch.
Organizers of Linn Area Reads picked the two novels because of their similarities. Each book examines racial prejudice in a small town: Tallgrass is set in southeastern Colorado during World War II outside an internment camp for American citizens of Japanese heritage, relocated from California in one of our nation’s most shameful episodes; Mockingbird examines racial injustice in Alabama in the 1930s.
The books had other parallels: Each is told through the eyes of a young girl (Rennie in Tallgrass, Scout in Mockingbird); each girl’s father is the moral rock of the story, standing strong against bigotry; each book examines other prejudices (against unwed mothers and people with mental disabilities).
Jim Kern of Brucemore will lead a discussion of those similarities Thursday, April 9, at Barnes & Noble. I need to finish Mockingbird by then. Wouldn’t want to comment on parallels between the scenes where the fathers stand up to potential lynch mobs if the Mockingbird scene was in the movie but not the book.
A “Buseum” traveling exhibit of “Held in the Heartland,” about German prisoner-of-war camps in the Midwest, will come to the Westdale Mall parking lot Tuesday, March 31. Linn Area Reads will conclude with a “Stage to Page” discussion with cast members of the Classics at Brucemore production of To Kill a Mockingbird. The discussion will be Friday, May 8, at 6 p.m. at Marion Public Library. The play opens July 9.
I will moderate and The Gazette will sponsor a “Race in America” panel discussion Thursday, April 23, at 7 p.m. at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art.
I’d be interested in hearing how you view racial issues in our country and in our community. In the 1930s era when Mockingbird was set or in 1960, when it was published, it would have been impossible to imagine an African-American president. We have come a long way. But I receive too many emails and letters loaded with overt or subtle racism to think that one election wiped away centuries of bigotry.
Tell me the questions and issues you would like us to address in this panel discussion: If you are a racial or ethnic minority in our community, how do you feel included and excluded? What barriers remain? What opportunities have you had that were denied to your parents? If you are in the majority, how has your understanding of other races grown in recent years? In what matters, if any, do you think that race becomes a false issue?
If we are so fortunate as to have a Harper Lee in our midst today, what issues would she address in a novel that would still touch hearts a half-century later?
Comfort is found in the break by itself.
Enjoy the Read.
Enjoy the vitality that returns to the soul.
John
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So happy to hear you’re doing “Mockingbird”! It is, in my opinion, the ultimate Amerian classic. I’ve read it every summer since I was 12 years old (I’m now 48) and am thrilled to say I’ve passed my love of Atticus, Jem and Scout down to two of my daughters. They even named their kittens Jem and Scout. It still amazes me, though, how many people have not read this wonderful book. I agree completely on Gregory Peck, but I won’t spoil the book by clueing you in on the lynch mob scene. Happy reading!
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Ray Buck sent this by email. I am posting with his permission:
Mr. Buttry: Your column 3/23/09 ended with a question.
I have an answer.
We just may have a Harper Lee in our midst today.
Cynthia Lord and she has written a lovely children’s book, Rules.
It is a novel that looks at feeling different yet finding acceptance in today’s crazy, demanding world.
You mentioned both of your books were told through the eyes of a young girl.
Rules is a story told by a 12 yr old girl with an autistic younger brother.
About a snooty new neighbor and a young man, “handicapped” with no voice.
At a time when 1 in approx. 150 children are found to be autistic, many siblings are finding their lives “disrupted” by this “stranger”.
At a time when “peer pressure’ among young teens is mounting.
At a time when so many “disabled or handicapped” are thrown into the main stream to be subjected to stares and sneers,
I feel strongly, this book could make a lasting impact on young & old, in many ways and for many years.
It is an easy read, maybe an hour.
Be someone that: “Read a ‘classic’, before it was.” :o)
Try it and you’ll want to discuss it with other readers as well.
I believe everyone should know about this wonderful book.
I would have sent this response to the Opinions page
but was afraid it would sound like an ad and not be printed anyway.
Ray Buck, grandpa of a 12 yr old girl that shares her younger autistic brother with 4 other siblings. :o(
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My family (parents, my generation and my kids) always loved “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the book more than the movie but it’s a great movie. I don’t think it spoils the book to say that all of the major movie scenes (and much more) happen in the book. My kids caught the “Mockingbird” bug too–when they were young, they had two pet birds–Finches. Named, of course, Jem and Scout.
More so in the the book than the movie, Miss Maudie and Dill were two of my favorite charaters. I also used to re-read the book annually, too, although now there is too much else to read.
I am putting “Tallgrass” on my “to read soon” list. Very tangential aside, but I’m curious–German prisoners were held in Storm Lake, Iowa, where there any WWII prison camps closer to C.R.?
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[…] Content Conductor Steve Buttry (in short, my boss) posed a question at the end of his March 23 column regarding the Linn Area Reads program. This year’s program features “Tallgrass” […]
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