Small Batch: 'To Kill A Mockingbird'

Harper Lee in a courthouse near her hometown of Monroeville, Ala.

Donald Uhrbrock/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

We were sad today to learn that Harper Lee, the author of To Kill A Mockingbird (and, much more recently, Go Set A Watchman) had died at 89, so Barrie Hardymon of NPR's Weekend Edition sat down with me to talk about Lee's most famous book and how significant it feels in our respective orbits. We talk a little about its portrayal of its unusual six-year-old protagonist, its respect for the personhood of kids in general, its imperfect but earnest efforts to engage issues of race, and the smaller lessons about kindness that it treats with great seriousness.