Lydia, thanks for your response. The usual silence about the Mrs. Dubose episode has always puzzled me. I don't know if readers generally don't find it compelling or it is relatively unmemorable coming on the heels of the indelible image of Atticus shooting the mad dog. But I'm with you about that quote. It is Atticus's warning to Jem and foreshadows that the first baby steps of standing up to the status quo cannot be expected to succeed but are nonetheless necessary.It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.It epitomizes Atticus's involvement, don't you think? I think it is one of the most powerful messages in all of TKaM.I am interested in how the novel is perceived by those from countries other than the U.S. Netla has already weighed in - I wonder if there is any equivalent to this way of life and the beliefs expressed in the novel in other places? Those of us from the industrial north might view the novel as though it is in fact from other country!Siobhan, I'm sure you would prefer to hear directly from readers outside the U.S., but your question interested me so I asked two of my non-U.S. friends about what they think. I thought I would share their responses. The first friend was born, bred, and still lives in Yorkshire. She says that she half-expected TKaM to be completely foreign to her. Instead she found that, although many of the characteristics make the place and people of TKaM unique to the American South, there were just as many instances in which she could identify. She feels that Maycomb could almost be any small town in England, with similar eccentrics, prejudices, and pathos. She sees the theme as universal to the human condition. My second friend is Argentinian. She says what enchanted her so much was the children's day-to-day lives: how they were left to their own devices and how safe their world seemed until, of course, things were no longer safe for them. I think I have profoundly thoughtful friends! An experience of mine: I tried to read Ne tirez pas sur l'oiseau moqueur, but I finally gave up because Jem and Scout speaking French just seemed too incongruous to me. It makes me wonder how many English translations come out sounding absurd to the speakers of the language the story was originally written in.

Leave it be. A lot of times their nests are relatively exposed.

rob, I'm flattered that you remembered something I'd said in passing. In return, I looked at the link you posted to find where The Lorax had been banned. It turns out it was in 1989 in Laytonville, CA, population 1200. There in logging country, it was banned for demonizing the forestry industry. Nowhere else. Nowhere else. It may be instructive to know that the area around Laytonville, in Mendocino County, has long been the most active center for the cultivation of another, higher value agricultural product. The school district may have partaken of a bit too much of the second when enacting this ban. You can pass over this one and forget about it safely, it's indicative of nada. And the other ones on the map aren't much either, pockets of dumb things done in very small places. After going through that, I'd conclude - no significant censorship exists in California schools. That surprises me a bit. But this is something other than political correctness, if I understand. Just like the Scopes Trial (over 90 years ago and still debated in some places), it's a matter of a minority of parents trying to control what's done in schools for all children, when it doesn't line up with their own views. Efforts to stop discussions about racism are focused in the South. That wasn't my information, it was in the article. An irony is that I would guess some percentage of the parents in Biloxi complaining about the book, and the presence of the offensive N word, may very well use that word themselves. And not in a friendly way.

Carol, I love mockingbirds. When I was a teenager, my dad had one that lived in our Cassina tree in the front yard. It would jump down and walk him to his car every morning, and meet him in the evening, and walk him back to the house. Dad named it Sam. I had one at my old house that would sit up on the aluminum antenna on my neighbor's house right outside my bedroom, and peck on it to wake me up in the morning. As soon as I showed my head outside, he would stop. He loved my elderberries. I've had a mockingbird attach itself to me everywhere I've lived. I think it should be my spirit animal. I had forgotten it's our state bird. Well, then, I have both of my state birds here at my apartment. There is a pair of Carolina wrens (South Carolina) and the mocker. I love them both.