Compassionate dramatic and deeply moving Harper Lees To Kill a Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior to innocence and experience kindness and cruelty love and hatred and the struggle between blacks and whites Atticus Finch a lawyer and single parent in a small southern town in the 1930s is appointed by the local judge to defend Tom Robinson a black man who is accused of raping a white woman Friends and neighbors object when Atticus puts up a strong and spirited defense on beh