47SW "To Kill A Mockingbird" / Harper Lee

May 22, 2017:  Updated Goal:  It is time to return home.  Please make your way back to Santa Clara county, California .... ideally to Morgan Hill (suth of San Jose).  Thank you.​

A sub-species within a collection of about 60 trackables being released in my cache:  GC46C66   Bluebirds Fly.
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This group is based on an “Angry Birds Star Wars” collection.  These reflect a different type of “star wars”.  Each is based on “star” power of performers, writers, famed or infamous personalities, etc.  Criteria for selection of the honoree – simply a “bird” connected name or title.  ­­
 
Hope you recognize some of these.  Perhaps you’ll have recollections of your own or just be introduced to an oldie but goodie from the star power tribute.  Enjoy!
 
***To Kill A Mockingbird, a Pulitzer prize winning novel by Harper Lee, published in 1960***
 
In genre “Mockingbird” is considered a Southern(U.S.) Gothic, coming-of-age novel.  It’s set against a backdrop of racism and racial injustice, as well as gender roles and class boundaries.  The novel became a classic to study very soon after publication.  It remains relevant in modern day.
 
Themes:  Southern life and racial injustice; Class; Courage and compassion; Gender roles; Laws (written and unwritten); loss of Innocence
 
The mockingbird is the key representation of the loss of innocence theme.  The symbolism, as summarized by writer Edwin Bruell in 1964, is “To kill a mockingbird is to kill that which is innocent and harmless.”  The mockingbird theme represents “someone with an inner goodness that must be cherished”.  In the novel a character describes the mockingbird as simply providing pleasures with their song, singing their hearts out for us.
 
That’s a powerful message, and a reminder that innocence and inner goodness is strength in a human, often perceived as a weakness. 
 
To Kill A Mockingbirdis a powerful novel that should be on a must read list.