To Kill a Mockingbird

By Harper Lee · Reviewed by EBO Books · Fiction

Told through a child’s eyes, which is both its strength and its limit: Scout’s voice makes the story warm and readable, and the courtroom centerpiece still lands hard. It works best as a starting point for thinking about justice and prejudice, not as the last word on either. The small-town summer scenes — the treehouse logic, the neighbors, the heat — are as memorable as the trial.

Verdict: Read it, especially if you've never read it. Then read something that answers back to it.