Week 34: Harper Lee

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.

By the time you graduate from college, it’s quite possible that you will have read “To Kill a Mockingbird” three times or more. This classic American novel is required reading in middle schools, high schools, and universities across the country. This week we celebrate the birth of its author, Harper Lee.

Lee has received some of the most prestigious awards for writing “Mockingbird,” including a Pulitzer Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. But in spite of her potential for fame, Lee has never published another book, nor has she ever given a speech. In a rare letter to Oprah Winfrey that she allowed to be published, however, Lee wrote the following about her love of reading:

“My sisters and brother, much older, read aloud to keep me from pestering them; my mother read me a story every day, usually a children's classic, and my father read from the four newspapers he got through every evening. Then, of course, it was Uncle Wiggily at bedtime.. Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books. Instant information is not for me. I prefer to search library stacks because when I work to learn something, I remember it.”

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as Monroeville, Alabama to find diversity. There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school. Find one today!