"One of the best biographies of 2006." -The Christian Science Monitor

"Shields's evocation of both the woman and her beautiful, sleepy, and smoldering South are pitch-perfect." -Anne Rivers Siddons

"An informative and genial biography that literary fiction lovers will flock to." -Booklist




Click on the image above to see Charles Shields at the 2007 Southern Voices conference giving a talk on his book Mockingbird.




Dear Reader:

If you'll take a few minutes to click through these pages, you'll learn a lot about Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, and my work as a writer. In particular, please read the excerpt from Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee. It will take you back to the little town where Harper Lee, and her alter ego, Scout, were raised. And could that photograph of the earnest young man in the starched collar be the model for Atticus Finch? Yes, it is. In his mid-30s and just starting out as lawyer in southern Alabama is A. C. Lee, Harper Lee’s father.

Good reading to you,
Charles J. Shields

Winner of the 2007 Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance for Best Nonfiction Book

#15 on the New York Times Nonfiction Bestseller List

#5 on Amazon Consumers' List of Top Ten Biographies for 2006

Quill Award Nominee for Biography

Featured on Good Morning, America and The Today Show
I AM SCOUT: A Biography of Harper Lee
$16.95
$21.00 CAN
Henry Holt & Co
ISBN-13: 9780805083347
ISBN-10: 0805083340
Available April 2008
 
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is the most widely read novel in American literature. Two-thirds of American public high schools include it in their curricula. Yet the author — who never published another novel— remains a mysterious figure, refusing since 1965 to give interviews or talk about her Pulitzer prize-winning novel.  I Am Scout is the first-ever comprehensive biography written for a young audience that tells the story of how Miss Lee struggled to become an author and created one of the most popular novels of the 20th century. It fills what has been an empty place on school and library shelves for almost 50 years.

I Am Scout Selected by Junior Literary Guild
"The text does an excellent job of conveying the facets of Lee's personality that made her a writing success, including her honesty, tenacity, sense of justice and adaptability of interpersonal style... Shields demonstrates Lee's critical role in the creation of longtime friend Truman's Capote's In Cold Blood. Prior knowledge of both works is not absolutely necessary, thanks to an absorbing and easy narrative style...." -Kirkus Reviews

Use this free, downloadable discussion guide (PDF), written by the author, for classrooms, book clubs, library reading clubs, or just as a companion to the book.