It is the mission of the month-long reading program, which kicked off Saturday, to promote literacy in the technological age. Although “To Kill a Mockingbird” isn’t available on Kindle or other e-readers, it is a must read, says program head.
By Meg Boberg / Special to The Malibu Times
Fifty years after Harper Lee won a Pulitzer Prize for her fictional novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the book still sells more than a million copies annually and remains one of the most-read books in the country.
This month, the book was chosen for the month-long reading program, One Book, One City-Malibu, at the same time as the eighth grade students of Malibu Middle School are reading it.
To kickoff the event, the head of One Book, One City, Alexis Deutsch-Adler, spoke at the Malibu High School Library on Saturday about the book and its continuing significance as it applies to social issues and civil rights detailed in the plot set in rural Alabama during the Great Depression. “‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is a hallmark of the vivid times in which author Harper Lee lived and wrote, an iconic moment when civil rights issues rose to the forefront of American and social political examination as well as debate,” Deutsch-Adler said. “It’s hard not to support the characters and, perhaps, above all, the themes that address tolerance and justice.”
Malibu Middle School students took notes as other speakers addressed the group, including Mayor Pro Tem Laura Rosenthal, Los Angeles County Assistant Director Barbara Custen and Malibu High School Librarian Joe DiMercurio.
Deutsch-Adler emphasized the organization’s mission of promoting literacy in our technological age, adding that even though “To Kill a Mockingbird” isn’t available on Kindle or other e-readers, it is a must read. “It has won over scholars, critics and, most importantly, readers,” Deutsch-Adler said. “It clearly proves it continues to have the moxie to do so for decades to come.”
A favorite quote cited by DiMercurio and Deutsch-Adler comes from the character Atticus Finch as he explains to his children, Jem and Scout, the need for tolerance by saying, “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.”
Although author Harper Lee, 85, never published another novel and has not granted interview requests in more than 45 years, she did send a faxed note to the One Book, One City-Chicago program in its inaugural year in 2001.
“When the people of Chicago assemble in various parts of the city to read and discuss ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ there is no greater honor the novel could receive,” Lee wrote. “People of all backgrounds and cultures coming together to put their critical skills to work-nothing could be more exciting, or fruitful: when people speak their minds and bring to discussion their own varieties of experience, when they receive respect for their opinions and the good will of their fellows, things change.”
The Malibu Film Society also collaborated with the One Book, One City-Malibu program by screening the 1962 film adaptation at the Malibu Jewish Center and Synagogue on Sunday. Gregory Peck, who played Atticus Finch, won an Academy Award as Best Actor, the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar went to Horton Foote and a design team was awarded an Oscar for Best Art Direction and Set Decoration in Black and White. Lee worked as a consultant on the screenplay adaptation of the novel.
On hand to introduce the film Sunday was Pepperdine University Law Professor Ed Larson, who won the Pulitzer Prize in History in 1998. Larson discussed the history of Reconstruction, the Civil Rights movement, apartheid and segregation, and how they relate back to the book. “There was total segregation and total divide, but there have always been people like Atticus Finch,” Larson said. “They were by then viewed as sort of the old Southern liberals, and many from the South idolized him.”
Also included in the One Book, One City event this month is a writing contest sponsored by Diesel, A Bookstore. Participants are to write something in the spirit of the book, either in fiction or nonfiction, dealing with integrity, social justice, courage or compassion. Ideally, the winner will combine all of these in a brief story, true or imagined.
Since 2003, there has been an annual increase of 10 percent in people participating in the program.
In addition to promoting reading, another goal of the program is to draw support to the Malibu Public Library, which is currently undergoing renovations and will reopen by the end of the year.
More information about One Book, One City-Malibu program can be obtained by calling 310.456,6438 or online at 1b1c-bu.com