The Mockingbird Parables: Transforming Lives Through the Power of Story
Matt Litton
Tyndale House Publishers, 2010, 233 pp., $14.99
Here’s a challenge. The next time your students complain about some old book they have to read for school, offer to read it with them. A classic generally earns the designation for its deft handling of enduring human questions and dilemmas. Stories that have become part of the cultural idiom give us natural opportunities to introduce students to the habit of thinking theologically about all the texts they encounter in life. If you are looking for prime material for such an introduction or for something to re-prime your own literary pump (the one you stored away with your softball cleats), try The Mockingbird Parables. High school English teacher Matt Litton offers an outstanding spiritual reading—currently unavailable in most high school English classrooms—of Harper Lee’s classic To Kill a Mockingbird as a parable of compassion, courage and community. In the microcosm of small town Maycomb, Litton discerns lessons about parenting, responsible living, caring for neighbors and envisioning God as a mysterious neighbor who, similar to the enigmatic Boo Radley, must be engaged on his own terms rather than defined or domesticated.
