Name _______________________________
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Reading Questions
Chapter 1
1. What do you learn about the setting of the novel, Maycomb?
2. Briefly describe the important characters introduced in the chapter?
 Scout (narrator)
 Jem
 Dill
 Atticus
 Calpurnia
3. What, briefly, has happened to Arthur “Boo” Radley?
4. Why does the Radley place fascinate Scout, Jem and Dill?
5. Who is narrating the novel? What is the point of view? Why is this perspective important?
6. Draw and label a picture of what Boo Radley might look like, according to Jem’s description.
Name _______________________________
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Reading Questions
Chapter 2 Summary (Based on http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/section2.rhtml)
September arrives, and Dill leaves Maycomb. Scout prepares to go to school for the first time, an event
that she has been eagerly anticipating. At school, her teacher, Miss Caroline Fisher, is upset with Scout when
she finds out that Atticus has already taught Scout to read.
Miss Caroline and Scout get along badly the whole morning. Walter Cunningham, a boy in Scout’s class,
has not brought a lunch. Miss Caroline offers him a quarter to buy lunch, telling him that he can pay her back
tomorrow. Walter’s family is very poor, but they don’t accept charity. When Scout attempts to explain, Miss
Caroline doesn’t understand and becomes so frustrated that she slaps Scout’s hand with a ruler.
Chapter 3 Summary (Based on http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/section2.rhtml)
Important quote: “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.”
At lunch, Scout fights Walter for getting her in trouble, but Jem stops her and invites Walter to lunch. At
the Finch house, Walter pours molasses all over his meat and vegetables, to Scout’s disgust. When she criticizes
Walter, however, Calpurnia calls her into the kitchen to scold her, telling her to be a better hostess.
Back at school, Miss Caroline becomes terrified when a tiny bug, or “cootie,” crawls out of a boy’s hair.
The boy is Burris Ewell, who is from a family even poorer and less respectable than the Cunninghams. In fact,
Burris only comes to school the first day to avoid trouble with the law. He leaves the classroom, cussing out the
teacher, and causes Miss Caroline to cry.
At home, Scout tells Atticus that she does not think she will go to school anymore and suggests that he
could teach her. Atticus replies that the law demands that she go to school, but he makes a compromise: he
promises to keep reading to her, as long as she does not tell her teacher about it.
Chapter 4
1. What do the children find in the knothole of the tree?
2. What superstitions do the children have in connection with the Radley house?
3. What do the children do when playing the “Boo Radley” game? Do you think the game is an
accurate version of what happens in the Radley's home? Why or why not?
4. What does Scout finally reveal happened when she fell out of the tire? Who might be inside the
house?
Name _______________________________
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Reading Questions
Chapter 5 Summary (Based on http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/section3.rhtml)
Jem and Dill grow closer, and Scout begins to feel left out. As a result, she starts spending much of her
time with one of their neighbors: Miss Maudie Atkinson, a widow with a talent for gardening and cake-baking.
She tells Scout that Boo Radley is still alive and it is her theory Boo is the victim of a harsh father (now
deceased). Miss Maudie adds that Boo was always polite and friendly as a child and that most of the rumors
about him are false.
Meanwhile, Jem and Dill plan to give a note to Boo inviting him to get ice cream with them. They try to
stick the note in a window of the Radley Place with a fishing pole, but Atticus catches them and orders them to
“stop tormenting that man” with either notes or the “Boo Radley” game.
Chapter 6 Summary (Based on http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/section3.rhtml)
Jem and Dill obey Atticus until Dill’s last day in Maycomb, when he and Jem plan to sneak over to the
Radley Place and peek in through a loose shutter. Scout goes with them, and they creep around the house.
Suddenly, they see the shadow of a man with a hat on and run, hearing a shotgun go off behind them. They
escape under the fence by the schoolyard, but Jem’s pants get caught on the barbed wire, and he has to kick
them off in order to free himself.
The children return home, where they encounter the neighborhood adults, including Atticus, Miss
Maudie, and Miss Stephanie Crawford, the neighborhood gossip. Miss Maudie informs them that Mr. Nathan
Radley shot at “a Negro” in his yard. When Atticus asks Jem where his pants are, Dill lies that he won Jem’s
pants in a game of strip poker. Alarmed, Atticus tells Jem to get his pants back from Dill. Late that night, Jem
sneaks out to the Radley Place and retrieves his pants.
Chapter 7 Summary (Based on http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/section4.rhtml)
A few days later, after school has begun for the year, Jem tells Scout that he found the pants
mysteriously sewn and hung neatly over the fence. When they come home from school that day, they find
another surprise hidden in the knothole: a ball of gray twine.
Late that fall, another present appears in the knothole—two figures carved in soap that resemble Scout
and Jem. The figures are followed by chewing gum, a spelling bee medal, and an old pocket watch. The next day,
Jem and Scout find that the knothole has been filled with cement. When Jem asks Mr. Radley, Boo’s brother,
about the knothole the following day, Mr. Radley replies that he plugged the knothole because the tree is dying.
When the children ask Atticus about it, he says the tree looked healthy to him.
1. Who, do you suppose, is responsible for the gifts in the knothole, and why would Mr. Radley cement it up?
Chapter 8
2. What is the “near libel” that Jem creates in the front yard? Who does it look like?
3. Why does Atticus save Miss Maudie's oak rocking chair?
4. What is found around Scout’s shoulders? Who does Jem think put it there?
4. The next day, how does Miss Maudie react to her house burning down? What does this tell us
about her character and personality?
Name _______________________________
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Reading Questions
Chapter 9 Summary (Based on http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/section5.rhtml)
At school, Scout nearly starts a fight with a classmate named Cecil Jacobs after Cecil declares that “Scout
Finch’s daddy defends n__s.” Atticus has been asked to defend Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a
white woman. It is a case he cannot hope to win, because of the prejudice of the time, but he tells Scout that he
must argue it to uphold his sense of justice and self-respect.
At Christmastime, Atticus’s brother, Jack, comes to stay with the family for a week during the holidays.
On Christmas Day, they go to Finch’s Landing, the old family house in the country where Atticus’s sister,
Alexandra, and her husband live. There, Scout puts up with Francis, Alexandra’s bratty grandson.
One night, Francis tells Scout that Atticus is an “n__-lover.” Scout curses him and beats him up. Francis
tells Alexandra and Uncle Jack that Scout hit him, and Uncle Jack spanks her without hearing her side of the
story. After they return to Maycomb, Scout tells Jack what Francis said, and Jack becomes furious. Scout makes
him promise not to tell Atticus, however, because Atticus had asked her not to fight anyone over what is said
about him. Jack promises and keeps his word.
Chapter 10 Summary (Based on http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/section5.rhtml)
Important quote: “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. ... [T]hey don’t do one
thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
Atticus is older than most of the other fathers in Maycomb. His older age often embarrasses his
children—he wears glasses and reads, for instance, instead of hunting and fishing like the other men in town.
One day, a mad dog with rabies comes wandering down the main street toward the Finches’ house. Calpurnia
calls Atticus, who returns home with Heck Tate, the sheriff of Maycomb. Heck brings out a rifle and asks Atticus
to shoot the dog. To Jem and Scout’s amazement, Atticus hits the dog in the head with his first shot despite
being far away. Later, Miss Maudie tells Jem and Scout that, as a young man, Atticus was the best shot in the
county—“One-shot Finch.” Scout is eager to brag about this, but Jem tells her to keep it a secret.
Chapter 11
1. Describe Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose.
2. How does Atticus advise Jem to react to Mrs. Dubose's taunts?
3. What does Jem do out of anger?
4. What does Atticus mean when he says, “The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a
person’s conscience”?
5. What is Jem’s punishment? Is this fair considering his “crime”?
6. Why, in Atticus's view, was Mrs. Dubose “a great lady” and a model of real courage?
Name _______________________________
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Reading Questions
Chapter 12
1. How do the members of First Purchase Church treat Scout and Jem?
2. What does Scout learn about Zeebo's education?
3. Why does Cal speak one way around white people and another way around black people?
Chapter 13 Summary (Based on http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/section6.rhtml)
Aunt Alexandra explains that she will be staying with the children for a while, to give them a “feminine
influence.” Aunt Alexandra is extremely proud of the Finch name and spends much of her time discussing the
characteristics of the various families in Maycomb. This “family consciousness” is an integral part of life in
Maycomb, an old town where the same families have lived for generations, and where every family has its quirks.
However, Jem and Scout lack the pride that Aunt Alexandra considers proper to being a Finch and orders
Atticus to lecture them on the subject of their family heritage.
Chapter 14 Summary (Based on http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/section7.rhtml)
The upcoming trial of Tom Robinson makes Atticus and his family the objects of whispers and glances
whenever they go to town. One night, Jem tells Scout not to antagonize Aunt Alexandra. Scout gets angry at
being lectured and attacks Jem. Atticus breaks up the fight and sends them to bed. Scout discovers something
under her bed she thinks is a snake. She calls Jem in and they discover Dill hiding there.
Dill has run away from home because his mother and new father did not pay enough attention to him.
Jem goes down the hall and tells Atticus. Atticus asks Scout to get some food for Dill, before going next door to
tell Dill’s aunt, Miss Rachel, where he is. Dill eats, then spends the night with Jem and Scout.
Chapter 15 Summary (Based on http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/section7.rhtml)
A week after Dill’s arrival, a group of men led by the sheriff, Heck Tate, come to Atticus’s house in the
evening. As his trial is nearing, Tom Robinson is to be moved to the Maycomb jail, and concerns about the
possibility of a lynch mob have arisen. The following evening, Atticus takes the car into town. At about ten
o’clock, Jem, Scout, and Dill, sneak out of the house and follow Atticus. From a distance, they see him sitting in
front of the Maycomb jail, reading a newspaper.
Four cars drive up, a group of men gets out, and one demands that Atticus move away from the jailhouse
door. Atticus refuses because he wants to protect Tom, and Scout suddenly comes racing out of her hiding place.
Jem and Dill follow her, and Atticus orders Jem to go home. Jem refuses, and one of the men tells Atticus that
he has fifteen seconds to get his children to leave.
Scout looks around the group and recognizes Mr. Walter Cunningham, the father of her classmate
Walter Cunningham. She starts talking to him about his son, and asks him to tell his son “hey.” Mr.
Cunningham, suddenly ashamed, tells Scout that he will tell his son “hey” for her, and then tells his companions
to clear out.
Chapter 16
4. Why are so many people gathering at the courthouse?
5. Describe Dolphus Raymond.
6. How does Reverend Sykes help the children see and hear the trial?
Name _______________________________
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Reading Questions
Chapter 17 Summary (Based on http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/section8.rhtml)
The prosecutor, Mr. Gilmer, questions Sherriff Heck Tate, who recounts how, on the night of November
21, Bob Ewell asked him to go to the Ewell house and told him that his daughter Mayella had been raped. When
Tate got there, he found Mayella bruised and beaten, and she told him that Tom Robinson had raped her. Atticus
cross-examines the witness, who admits that no doctor was summoned and tells Atticus that Mayella’s bruises
were concentrated on the right side of her face. Tate leaves the stand, and Bob Ewell is called.
Bob Ewell and his children live behind the town garbage dump in a tin-roofed cabin with a yard full of
trash. Ewell testifies that on the evening in question he was coming out of the woods with kindling when he
heard his daughter yelling. When he reached the house, he looked in the window and saw Tom Robinson raping
her. Robinson ran away, and Ewell ran for the sheriff. Atticus’s cross-examination is brief: he asks Mr. Ewell
why no doctor was called, and then has the witness write his name. Bob Ewell, the jury sees, is left-handed.
Chapter 18 (Based on http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/section9.rhtml)
Mayella, who testifies next, is a reasonably clean and obviously terrified nineteen-year-old girl. She says
that she called Tom Robinson inside the fence that evening and offered him a nickel to break up a dresser
(chiffarobe) for her, and that once he got inside the house he grabbed her and took advantage of her.
Atticus then asks why she didn’t put up a better fight, why her screams didn’t bring the other children
running, and, most importantly, how Tom Robinson managed the crime: how he bruised the right side of her
face with his useless left hand, which was torn apart by a cotton gin when he was a boy. She shouts at Atticus and
the jury, then she then bursts into tears, refusing to answer any more questions. The prosecution rests, and
Atticus calls only one witness—Tom Robinson.
Chapter 19 (Based on http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/section9.rhtml)
Tom testifies that he always passed the Ewell house on the way to work and that Mayella often asked
him to do chores for her. On the evening in question, he recounts, she asked him to come inside the house and
fix a door. When he got inside, there was nothing wrong with the door, and he noticed that the other children
were gone. Mayella asked him to lift a box down from a dresser. When Tom climbed on a chair, she grabbed his
legs, scaring him so much that he knocked the chair over. She then hugged him around the waist and asked him
to kiss her. As this was going on, her father appeared at the window, threatening to kill her. Tom then ran away.
Mr. Gilmer cross-examines Tom. He begins to badger the witness, asking about his motives for always
helping Mayella with her chores, until Tom declares that he felt sorry for her. This statement puts the courtroom
ill at ease—in these times, black people aren’t supposed to feel sorry for a white person. Dill begins to cry, and
Scout takes him out of the courtroom. Outside the courtroom, Scout and Dill encounter Mr. Dolphus Raymond,
the rich white man with the colored mistress and mixed children.
Chapter 20
1. In most states of the U.S., people who drink alcohol in public places (like out on the street, etc.)
are required to hide their bottle. Why does Dolphus Raymond hide Coca-Cola in a bag?
2. What, according to Atticus, is the thing that Mayella has done wrong?
3. Explain, in your own words, Atticus's views on people being equal.
Name _______________________________
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Reading Questions
Chapter 21 (Based on http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/section10.rhtml)
Calpurnia hands Atticus a note telling him that his children have not been home since noon. When
he finds out they are sitting in the balcony, Atticus tells them to go home and have supper. They beg to be
allowed to hear the verdict; Atticus says that they can return after supper.
Calpurnia marches Jem, Scout, and Dill home. They eat quickly and return to find the jury still out,
and the courtroom still full. Evening comes, night falls, and the jury continues to deliberate. Jem is
confident of victory, while Dill has fallen asleep. Finally, after eleven that night, the jury enters. Scout
remembers that a jury never looks at a man it has convicted, and she notices that the twelve men do not
look at Tom Robinson as they file in – and deliver a guilty verdict. The courtroom begins to empty, and as
Atticus goes out, the black people in the balcony stand up in a gesture of respect while Atticus passes.
Chapter 22
1. Although Atticus did not want his children in court, he defends Jem's right to know what has
happened. Explain, in your own words, Atticus's reasons for this.
2. What does Atticus mean when he says, it “seems that only children weep”?
3. What do the African-American people in town do for the Finches? How does Atticus react?
4. Miss Maudie tells Jem that “things are never as bad as they seem.” What reasons does she give
for this view?
5. Why is Bob Ewell so angry with Atticus? Do you think his threat is a real one, and how might
he try to “get” Atticus?
Chapter 23 (Based on http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/section11.rhtml)
Bob Ewell’s threats worry everyone except Atticus. Atticus tells Jem and Scout that because he made
Ewell look like a fool, Ewell needed to get revenge. Now that Ewell has gotten that vengefulness out of his
system, Atticus expects no more trouble. Meanwhile, Tom Robinson has been sent to another prison seventy
miles away while his appeal goes through the court system. Atticus feels that he has a good chance of being
pardoned. When Scout asks what will happen if Tom loses, Atticus replies that Tom will go to the electric chair.
Later, Jem and Scout discuss the class system—why their aunt despises the Cunninghams and why the
Cunninghams look down on the Ewells, who hate black people, and other such matters. After being unable to
figure out why people go out of their way to despise each other, Jem suggests Boo Radley does not come out of
his house because he does not want to leave it.
Chapter 24 (Based on http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/section11.rhtml)
One day in August, Aunt Alexandra invites her church circle to tea. Suddenly, Atticus shows up and
calls Alexandra to the kitchen. There he tells Alexandra, Scout, Calpurnia, and Miss Maudie that Tom
Robinson tried to escape and was shot seventeen times – and killed. He takes Calpurnia with him to tell the
Robinson family of Tom’s death. Aunt Alexandra asks Miss Maudie how the town can allow Atticus to
wreck himself in pursuit of justice, and Maudie replies that the town trusts him to do what’s right.
Name _______________________________
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Reading Questions
Chapter 25 (Based on http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/section11.rhtml)
As September is beginning, Scout recalls that Jem and Dill convinced Atticus to let them accompany him
to Helen Robinson’s house, where they saw her collapse even before Atticus could say that her husband was
dead. Meanwhile, the news occupies Maycomb’s attention for about two days, and everyone agrees that it is
typical for a black man to do something irrational like try to escape. Mr. Underwood writes a long editorial
saying that Tom’s death was the murder of an innocent man, and he likens it to the “senseless slaughter of
songbirds.” The only other significant reaction comes when Bob Ewell is overheard saying that Tom’s death
makes “one down and about two more to go.” Summer ends and Dill leaves.
Chapter 26
1. How has Scout’s view of the Radley place changed?
2. In her lesson on Hitler, Miss Gates says that “we (American people) don't believe in
persecuting anyone.” What is hypocritical (saying one thing but doing another) about this?
3. Why does Scout's question “How can you hate Hitler an’ then turn around an’ be ugly about
folks right at home?” upset Jem?
Chapter 27
4. What three things does Bob Ewell do that alarm Aunt Alexandra?
5. Why, according to Atticus, does Bob Ewell bear a grudge?
6. What is different about Halloween this year? What is Scout’s role in the event?
Want to know the rest? Well, wait and SEE in the film version!
Name _______________________________
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Film Follow-Up Questions
1. At the end of the film, how does Scout make sense of the earlier remark of Atticus's about
climbing into someone else’s skin as she stands on the Radley porch?
2. In the end, how much of a surprise is it to find what Boo Radley is really like? That is, has the
story before this point prepared the reader for this discovery?
3. Compare the film to the novel. How did viewing the movie compare to the experience of
reading?
4. What other films does To Kill a Mockingbird remind you of? (Think of similar themes…)
Name _______________________________
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Film Follow-Up Questions
1. At the end of the film, how does Scout make sense of the earlier remark of Atticus's about
climbing into someone else’s skin as she stands on the Radley porch?
2. In the end, how much of a surprise is it to find what Boo Radley is really like? That is, has the
story before this point prepared the reader for this discovery?
3. Compare the film to the novel. How did viewing the movie compare to the experience of
reading?
4. What other films does To Kill a Mockingbird remind you of? (Think of similar themes…)