About this item
The inspiring true story of Harper Lee, the girl who grew up to write To Kill a Mockingbird, from Bethany Hegedus and Erin McGuire. Perfect for fans of The Right Word and I Dissent. Nelle Harper Lee grew up in the rocky red soil of Monroeville, Alabama. From the get-go she was a spitfire.Unlike most girls at that time and place, Nelle preferred overalls to dresses and climbing trees to tea parties. Nelle loved to watch her daddy try cases in the courtroom. And she and her best friend, Tru, devoured books and wrote stories of their own. More than anything Nelle loved words. This love eventually took her all the way to New York City, where she dreamed of becoming a writer. Any chance she had, Nelle sat at her typewriter, writing, revising, and chasing her dream. Nelle wouldn't give up - not until she discovered the right story, the one she was born to tell.Finally, that story came to her, and Nelle, inspired by her childhood, penned To Kill a Mockingbird. A groundbreaking book about small-town injustice that has sold over forty million copies, Nelle's novel resonated with readers the world over, who, through reading, learned what it was like to climb into someone else's skin and walk around in it.
About the Author
Bethany Hegedus's Truth with a Capital T (Delacorte/Random House) and Between Us Baxters (starred) (WestSide Books) were both named to the Bank Street Books Best Books in 2010 and 2011. Forthcoming, with Atheneum/Simon & Schuster is the picture book Grandfather Gandhi, co-authored with Arun Gandhi, grandson of the Mahatma. Bethany is the Editor of the Young Adult & Children's page for the VCFA literary journal Hunger Mountain. She teaches privately and speaks across the country. A longtime resident of NYC, she now writes from her home in Austin.
