I wanted to write about my eleven-year-old grandson’s decision to read To Kill a Mockingbird as an independent reading assignment.

The book was on a “stretch” list his fifth-grade teacher had distributed, so his choice wasn’t like deciding to read Ulysses or worse, Infinite Jest, out of nowhere. 

Still, even voracious eleven-year-old readers are more into Percy Jackson and Harry Potter than Atticus Finch and Boo Radley. All three of my grandkids are reading on what I consider a superior level for their ages, but what do I know? I’m not a teacher. I’m not even a good reader. I have a bad habit of reading only what appeals to me and not what will improve my character. Worse, often what appeals to me are books I’ve read before. My mother, another voracious reader, was baffled by my re-reading habit. As a child, her perplexity left me feeling vaguely guilty; now, of course, I understand that returning to favorite books is like visiting old friends. You don’t drop friends just because you’ve met them already. 

Anyway, about To Kill a Mockingbird. My grandson’s mother, my daughter, has a doctorate in early childhood education, and while she knew this boy was perfectly capable of reading and comprehending every word of Lee’s book, she also knew he’d likely need help climbing over the precarious stiles of nuance and the hillocks of the adult themes. 

In this she was correct, but fortunately, he asked for clarification now and again as he made his way through the drama in Maycomb, Alabama. His parents guided him as necessary and told him it was okay if he wanted to put the book down for now and return to it later. He declined.

“I know you don’t want me to read this book, but I’m going to finish it,” he told them.

In fact, his parents weren’t opposed to his choice of novel; they just didn’t want him to miss key incidents or the message. (I first read this book when I was maybe thirteen. I fancied myself a precocious reader, but I recall thinking the book told parallel stories: the Boo Radley story and the trial of Tom Robinson. If I pulled them together at the end, I remember no epiphany.) 

That my grandson accurately connected the threads was clear when I talked to him about the book. I’d seen on his family’s dining room table the beginning of an essay in his neat, penciled cursive. Mrs. Dubose was mentioned in the first line, which was as far as I read, having not requested permission.

“What was going on with Mrs. Dubose?” I asked as I was saying goodnight.

“She was getting over being addicted,” my grandson said, more or less.

“And at the end, when the sheriff is telling Atticus that Bob Ewell fell on his knife, Atticus is arguing with him. Does he think Jem did it?”

 My grandson looked at me. “Maybe you need to read the book,” he said.

In my defense, the sheriff does say, “Mr. Finch, do you think Jem killed Bob Ewell?” He also says, “Jem never stabbed Bob Ewell.”

Still, my grandson had added two and two and come up with Boo faster than Atticus and way faster than my thirteen-year-old self. My reading comprehension at that age was nothing compared to his at eleven. As a grandma, I was thrilled.

Over the ten days or so that my grandson read the book, his purpose became a motif running through his family’s life. He stayed in the car when my daughter went into the climbing gym to collect her younger son after a class. As the two of them left the building, her eight-year-old asked, “Is he reading To Kill a Mockingbird in the car?”

“He is,” his mother said. “Why do you ask?”

“Because he has to finish that book,” his brother said.

When I was that age, I chose to read another literary sensation. My sister made much of presenting me with our copy of Gone with the Wind as if it were a family heirloom. “It is time,” she said solemnly.

Our hardbound copy might be collectible today had it retained its gray cloth cover and its integrity. Years of reading, re-reading and playing a game with my best friend that involved her opening the book randomly while I identified the first line her eye fell on rendered the book a pile of loose pages inside a broken cover.

Unfortunately, what I derived from all those GWTW readings amounted to creative history and romantic fluff, not enduring truths about the real world. This grandson — and his brother and cousin, to judge by the titles I’ve seen bobbing in their oceans of books — are way ahead of my typical reading matter at their age. Walter R. Brooks’s Freddy the Pig had his points, but let’s face it, even if children these days aren’t reading Harper Lee, they’re reading literature. Lucky them.