Inside Perspective from a Brilliant 8th Grader

by Addie Weaver, Hamilton MS 8th Grader and Special Big Read Participant The Big Read is comprehension’ s best friend. I am a student at Hamilton Middle School, and curriculum in 9th grade requires everyone reads To Kill a Mockingbird. Anyone who has ever read this book knows that every chapter has many themes or …

When Your Favorite Book Comes to Life: 5 Things Mary Marshall Tucker Taught Me About To Kill a Mockingbird

By Hope College English Major, Katharyn Jones Mary Marshall Tucker, a friend of Harper Lee and resident of Monroeville, Alabama, gave her address entitled “Maycomb: My Perspective from Across the Fence” to the Holland community on November 6, 2014. As I look forward to Dr. Wayne Flint’s, another friend of Harper Lee and a decorated …

Holland Public 9th Graders Respond with Word Clouds

Freshmen in Honors English at Holland Public High School responded to major themes and ideas in To Kill a Mockingbird by creating unique word clouds. These 9th graders were inspired by the characters in Harper Lee’s book and used adjectives that they thought embodied themes in the work as a whole. Interacting with the story and responding with art …

Steve Penkevich: A Timeless Classic

Personal Reflection and Analysis of To Kill a Mockingbird By Steve Penkevich ‘You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.’ Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird is an undisputed classic that few will avoid having read …

Lights, Camera, Action… Read!

Lights, Camera, Action! Read To Kill a Mockingbird! By Hope College English major, Katharyn Jones He set the stage. One week ago I joined the standing room only crowd gathered in Winants Auditorium to hear Hope College’s own, Dr. Fred Johnson, introduce Holland’s Big Read: To Kill a Mockingbird. I must admit I went to the …

Looking for Harper Lee

A Summary of Mark Childress’s article, “Looking for Harper Lee” Mark Childress, an award-winning novelist from the South, always loved To Kill a Mockingbird. In fact, he grew up in Monroeville, Alabama and knew friends of Harper Lee. In an article published several years ago, Childress described how her book affected him as a young reader: “The book moved …

Dr. Kathryn Schoon-Tanis: Moments of Grace and Courage

Moments of Grace and Courage: Reflecting on Dr. Fred Johnson’s “Bathing in the Sunshine of Despair” Dr. Kathryn Schoon-Tanis It’s easy as a white, educated woman of privilege to feel overwhelmed and paralyzed by race relations in our country. Between the beating of Rodney King and the LA race riots (when I was a Hope …

Read With Me

 By Hope College English Education major, Laura Van Oss             Last spring, Professor VanDuinen warned me that she’d be calling on me along with my fellow English Education students to participate in the Big Read come November. The more involved I’ve become with the project, the more excited I’ve become about the opportunity our city has …

Femininity in To Kill a Mockingbird

by Hope College English Education major, Abby LaBarge To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee portrays evident themes of racism, familial love, justice, and compassion.  One of the lesser discussed themes, however, is femininity.  In the beginning of To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout is determined to embrace her tomboy side for a great deal of …

A Modern-Day Atticus Finch

Bryan Stevenson is a lawyer who fights for justice and mercy on behalf of those who are discriminated against. NPR recently featured Stevenson in an interview and Calvin College will be hosting him this winter for their January Series. The founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, whose book Just Mercy went on sale this past month, is quite a hero to those …