...
Show More
If I could take any book off the high-school curriculum, it would be this one. Look down on me all you want, but this is not "great American literature". Why?
1. It is as trite and cliche as most "coming-of-age" stories - I think we all got sick of those long before we hit our teens. This one doesn't even tackle the confusion of identity, sexuality, spirituality that most teen books cover. Let me put it this way: there are good books about racial issues, but if that's the only subject in the book, they become a one-trick pony.
2. The characters are one-sided caricatures who manage to stay the same from beginning to end.
3. Portraying the black defendant as a naive, simple, and innocent child manipulated by a scheming white girl is racist in itself - am I the only one to notice this? Uncle Tom didn't need to be relocated into the fifties.
I had to write this review simply because I can't stand by and watch this piece of sentimental trash be voted one of the best books of all time. I would dearly love to pull this book out of the high school curriculum and replace it with Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land", which used to be taught until enough parents became afraid that their children might actually think in school.
1. It is as trite and cliche as most "coming-of-age" stories - I think we all got sick of those long before we hit our teens. This one doesn't even tackle the confusion of identity, sexuality, spirituality that most teen books cover. Let me put it this way: there are good books about racial issues, but if that's the only subject in the book, they become a one-trick pony.
2. The characters are one-sided caricatures who manage to stay the same from beginning to end.
3. Portraying the black defendant as a naive, simple, and innocent child manipulated by a scheming white girl is racist in itself - am I the only one to notice this? Uncle Tom didn't need to be relocated into the fifties.
I had to write this review simply because I can't stand by and watch this piece of sentimental trash be voted one of the best books of all time. I would dearly love to pull this book out of the high school curriculum and replace it with Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land", which used to be taught until enough parents became afraid that their children might actually think in school.