At first, I wanted to title this post, “Whatchoo Talkin’ ‘Bout, Atticus” (with a media-embedded laugh track), but then I thought, “This book is important to people. They may not know why it is important to them, but I am thinking about four or five people within my extended reading community who purchased this book yesterday to leave it sitting on a table where they could look at it with a mix of anxiety and ironic detachment.”

In one sense, these older readers–these adult readers–have become Rowlings-ed. Again. They’ve been Collins-ed. Again. They’ve been Kinney-ed. Again. But now, it’s Harper that has them anticipating. Buying. Waiting. Wondering.

They’ve been Lee-ed. And they sense that they have not only been Lee-ed, they have been lead to have believed something about a book and the characters in that book that may or may not be necessarily so. Many have let the book-buzz jumble their initial approach to the book much the same way as one might regard experiences to which anecdote along the line of urban legend might be attached.

They’ve been lead to read again. With the earnest they only wished their students might have when introduced to the prospect of a new story which has just dropped on shelves. For the summer of 2015, what book birthday has been more celebrated by the culture at large. For its long-standing presence in the hearts of readers and its placement upon many a state reading list, GO SET A WATCHMAN didn’t have to work very hard to find itself a best-seller in short order.

The question is: who will read this book?

Many a reader are experiencing the same feelings as so many a student who has a summer reading experience that is still waiting to come though the calendar suggests the time may have passed.

Early reviews within my reading community have been favorable and in celebration of the book. Others cite the intent. To say something of the later, how many know that the sole purpose of TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE is akin to the kind of a literary “Kickstarter” to pay for medical and hospice expenses?

That’s right. A beloved neo-classic was never meant to the Oprah Book Club Selection. As far as I know, there are no sequels or prequels planned for the book. Early drafts were rendered on an old Sony tape recorder.

Still others share that they have heard about an “error-ridden” draft. I might remind readers that this book is also regarded as an early-rough draft of the story many have come to know and to love. My friend, Dana Swier Huff celebrates the idea that publishers saw something in GO SET A WATCHMAN that had them thinking it a good idea to explore the character with a look back at her youth. Friends, this is American culture. We love A PUP CALLED SCOOBY DOO. MUPPET BABIES was a television masterpiece by way of public response. We have to meet Harry and Lloyd as teens before they team up to return a briefcase to its owner in Apsen.

We want the whole story. Wait. . .do we want the WHOLE story?

With TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD we wanted a story and Lee delivered. As I tell students, characters in a book are simply minding their own business until we come along and crack the cover. We pin the red “A” to the chest of a young woman. We peer inside the door to find Gregor is a cockroach. We set in motion the cycle of events that spell the fall of a king.

We put twenty-six-year-old Scout on a train bound for Maycomb.

I don’t know what I will add to the conversation here regarding the new Lee release. But I do know this. It’s got people talking about a book.

It’s got a lot of people talking about a book. It’s because TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is America’s “in-common” text. From sea to shining sea, it’s our star-bangled, whole-class novel. We may have forgotten the score we got on the quiz for our having finished the book and our needing to be assessed, but we don’t forget that we have read it. It’s the book and not the unit. . .not the dioramas. . .not the Reading Counts quiz that keep TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD on our reading radar. The book affects us in ways that cannot be assessed.

And here we could talk about rigor. The affective aspects of rigor are often disregarded in the selection and the sharing of books with today’s students. Like the reading community at large, they will have their first experience with Harper Lee’s TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.

Friends. . .I am going to offer a bold opinion here: young adult readers are not–as a whole–buzzing about GO SET A WATCHMAN. We, the adult reading population ARE and it is note-worthy and discussion-worthy that WE ARE.

I have little doubt that readers within my reading community have read GO SET A WATCHMAN. I have not seen one single comprehension-level quiz for these readers, but their collective response tells me that the book is being read. Their tweets. Their status updates. Their blog posts tell me that they have read the book.

And now they are responding to the book.

Jack Finch tells Scout at the end of GO SET A WATCHMAN that “A novel must tell a story.” Jack Finch invites Scout to “open her eyes” and “to look around.”

This is what readers do when they are reading and it is what they do after they have read a book. And when they read a book in one sitting for the first time in a while (“gulped” is the word I keep seeing pop up within the threads), they open their eyes. They look around. They begin looking for other readers. They find them in community. They begin to talk.

My friend, Donalyn Miller, cites a well-known literacy expert who shares: Literacy floats on a sea of talk.

Years after having finished TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, did a generation of readers ever really get a chance to talk? GO SET A WATCHMAN is inviting that talk now. But, in order for that talk to be authentic, we will have to pick up the new book. The talk must happen inside of the book not the outside. This is not how we would want our students to discuss a book. Intent says that the two books must be yolked somehow, but I make a suggestion that both novels tell a story.

And one of them has people talking again.

 

 

Blogger’s Note: I am being interviewed regarding GO SET A WATCHMAN on Friday. I am doing deeper readings of the book today and tomorrow. As I flesh out those ideas and associated feelings, I may share them here over the weekend.