To Kill a Mockingbird was written by Harper Lee.

Miss Harper Lee was born on April 28^th, 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama. Her father was Robert E. Leigh, a confederate general. Her mother was Amasa Coleman Lee.

She went to school and studied law. She went to Huntington College, the University of Alabama, and Oxford. She didn't finish school, but she became worked as a clerk for the airlines.

Miss Lee submitted her novel to the J.B. Lippincott Company. They told her that her novel had too many short stories strung together, and was told to re-write it. She worked for two and a half years with her editor, Tay Hohoff and finally got it published in 1960.

In 1961, she published “Love --- In Other Words” and “Christmas to Me”. She published “When Children Discover America” in 1965. However, her only novel was To Kill a Mockingbird.

In 1962-3, To Kill a Mockingbird was made as a movie. A man named "Foot" directed it. The movie was nominated in many categories for the academy awards.

In 1997, she was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters at Spring Hill College in Mobile Alabama. Professor Margaret Davis said she was being honored for her “lyrical elegance, her portrayal of human strength, and wisdom.”

The movie was made in the early days of the Civil Rights movement in 1962-3 which has a huge effect on the movie and book. This book has a viewpoint about African Americans during that time period. This was during the Great Depression. Many people do not have a lot of money to throw around as we do now.

• Scout: "Naw, Jem, I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks."
•  "Lawyers, I suppose, were children once." - Charles Lamb
• "First of all," he [Atticus] said, "if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view-until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."
• Miss Maudie: "Atticus Finch is the same in his house as he is on the public streets."
• Atticus: "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what."
• Atticus: "This case, Tom Robinson's case, is something that goes to the essence of a man's conscience-Scout, I couldn't go to church and worship God if I didn't try to help that man."
• Calpernia: "It is not necessary to tell all you know. It's not ladylike- in the second place, folks don't like to have somebody around knowin' more than they do. It aggravates 'em. You're not gonna change any of them by talkin' right, they've got to want to learn themselves, and when they don't want to learn there's nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language."  (talking about when they went to church how Cal can write and read)
• Scout: "Somewhere, I had received the impression that Fine Folks were people who did the best they could with the sense they had, but Aunt Alexandra was of the opinion, obliquely expressed, that the longer a family had been squatting on one patch of land the finer it was."
• Reverend Sykes: "Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin'."
• Atticus: "So if spitting in my face and threatening me saved Mayella Ewell one extra beating, that's something I'll gladly take. He had to take it out on somebody and I'd rather it be me than that houseful of children out there."
• Atticus: "As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it-whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash."
• Aunt Alexendra: "'Don't be silly, Jean Louise,' said Aunt Alexandra. 'The thing is, you can scrub Walter Cunningham till he shines, you can put him in shoes and a new suit, but he'll never be like Jem. Besides, there's a drinking streak in that family a mile wide. Finch women aren't interested in that sort of people.'"