Goodbye, mockingbird: Book still important to Centre County readers

The cover of the book changed over the years.

The bent branches of the big tree against a red sky, the letters of the title bold against black in the first edition. A silhouette of a young girl against the same tree, the words growing from its branches. The lavender glossy cover with the tree’s knothole filled with treasures as a bird flies away, familiar from a million student backpacks.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” has defined bookshelves, English classes, libraries and the way people think for 56 years.

The woman who won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize in less than 400 pages, Alabama novelist Harper Lee, died at age 89 on Friday. She wrote just two books in her life. “Go Set a Watchman” was published in 2015, but the book people think of is the one taught in almost every public school. “To Kill a Mockingbird” has never been out of print since its first printing in July 1960.

But does the death of an old woman almost 1,000 miles away hit people in central Pennsylvania?

Oh, yes.

“Her book has had an immense influence on our programming and partnerships,” said Maria Burchill, head of adult services at Schlow Centre Region Library.

In 2003, the local libraries, school districts and some other groups banded together to create “Centre County Reads,” putting book-lovers all on the same page, enjoying the same story at the same time. The first book Centre County read together? “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

There was so much more than reading.

Dotty Delafield, the Mount Nittany Middle School librarian, remembers all of the events planned that year, including the dramatic re-enactment of the courtroom scene that Gregory Peck made famous in the film adaptation. The event took place in Centre County’s historic main courtroom, with local kids playing tomboy Scout and her brother Jem.

“There were a lot of adults saying, ‘I read this as a young adult, and I’m reading it again and getting so much more out of it,’ ” said Delafield. “It’s one of those books where you get something more each time. To me, that’s the beauty of literature. You get more insights than you had the first time around.”

That’s why the book is a staple in the classroom.

“(It) serves as an important connection between our social studies and English curricula,” said Angie Howe, a Philipsburg-Osceola English teacher.

“Scout and Jem’s coming of age, a theme that resonates with ninth-grade students, is experienced through the trial of Tom Robinson and the subsequent deaths of both Tom and his accuser, Bob Ewell, and serves as a parallel to the coming of age of our country. Harper Lee’s exploration of racism, prejudice and loss of innocence brings to life a critical time of change in our nation’s history for today’s students,” she said.

Those are issues that were huge in the 1950s, when Lee was living in New York and writing a book about the Deep South she called home. They are also issues that have continued to be important in the decades since.

Delafield said that at State College Area School District, the book is read in eighth grade.

“They approach it in a variety of ways,” she said. In addition to reading the book, they watch the 1962 movie. They listen to audio excerpts. They learn about the Alabama world that the Finches and Radleys inhabited.

“It has a tremendous influence on civil rights discussions,” said Burchill.

Schlow has several copies of the classic.

“It’s still popular. It’s still checked out most of the time,” Burchill said, calling it a book that crosses generations and genders.

But what do those first-time readers really get out of it?

“I think it depends on the kid. I think it makes a difference to a certain extent what they bring to the book. Some are going to get things out of it that others don’t. The ones that really soak it up and get something come back and get more the next time as well,” Delafield said.

And who they are drawn to changes with time, too.

“They identify with different people. That’s part of a re-read. Part of the attraction of using the book with middle schoolers or high schoolers is they can relate to the kids in the book, but a college student or an adult will talk more about the inspiration and example of (their father) Atticus,” Delafield said.

In a world where success can be measured by volume, Lee’s 55-year hiatus between publishing her first book and her last might seem strange.

“When a book affects an age or an era the way hers has, you almost don’t need to write another one,” said Burchill. “You had so much impact with that one shot.”

With Lee’s death, the book becomes her legacy.

“The book will continue to live,” said Delafield. “The fact that the book is still at such a core of showing where we’ve been and where we could go as a country, it has some of those timeless elements that we will see as a very important piece of literature for decades to come.”

This story was originally published February 19, 2016 at 4:20 PM with the headline "Goodbye, mockingbird: Book still important to Centre County readers."