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Have you read " 'To Kill a Mockingbird’ The only navel by Harper Lee offers moral lessons about racial justice and respect．It tells the story of a young girl named Scout and her father, Atticus Finch, a lawyer．He defends a black man．
Tom Robinson wrongfully accused of raping(強奸)a white woman．In the end, an all-white- jury(陪審團)sentences Tom Robinson to death．
The book is set in the American, South in the 1930s．
But it came out on July11th, 1960 as the civil rights movement in the United States was gaining strength．
Laws and customs in the South, however, still kept blacks and whites mostly separated．
A mockingbird is a land of gray songbird．The book gets its, title from something Atticus Finch was told in his childhood when his father gave him a gun．Atticus Finch said, "I remember when my daddy first gave me that gun, he．told me that I should never point at anything in the house, and that I could shoot all the blue jays I wanted, if I could hit them．But remember, it was a sin(罪過)to kill a mockingbird, for they don't hurt anyone, they just make music．"
Some people said, " 'To Kill a Mockingbird' treats racism in a way that is simplisite(過分單純化的), even offensive to blacks, and out of date in today's, America．" Still, it has been translated into more than forty languages and has sold over forty million copies．It is often required reading in high schools．Harper Lee won a Pulitzer Prize in America in 1961 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom of the United States for her contribution to literature in 2007．
The story takes place in a town that Harper Lee called Maycomb．But she based the characters on real people she knew growing up．Since then her hometown Monroeville has changed a lot．A number of African-Americans serve m the local government．The courthouse, made famous by the book, is now a museum．A small shop and a fast-food restaurant called Mel's Dairy Dream have replaced Harper Lee's childhood home．
