Scout Finch, age six, watches her father Atticus defend a Black man falsely accused of rape in Depression-era Alabama. Harper Lee's only novel (she published nothing else for fifty-five years) won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and has been read by millions. The moral clarity of Atticus has been both celebrated and questioned; the novel's treatment of race has been praised and criticized. What remains undeniable is the power of Scout's voice, the evocation of childhood and small-town Southern life, and the moment when courage fails to save Tom Robinson.