Chapter 1
The story is told by a young girl named Jean Louise Finch, who goes by her nickname, Scout. Scout lives in Maycomb, Alabama with her older brother Jem and her father Atticus. Scout’s mom died when she was two and she doesn’t remember her that well. Their cook, an old black woman named Calpurnia, helps to raise the children and keep the house. Atticus is a lawyer.
In the summer of 1933, when Jem is nearly ten and Scout almost six, a boy named Dill comes to stay for the summer with his aunt, Miss Rachel Haverford, who owns the house next to the Jem and Scout. One day Dill suggests that they try to get their mysterious neighbor named Boo Radley, out of his house. Dill dares Jem to run over and touch the house. Jem does so, but nothing happens. Scout thinks that she sees a shutter move a little, like someone was peeking out.
Arthur “Boo” Radley lives in the run-down Radley Place, and no one has seen him outside it in years. Boo got in trouble with the law when he was younger and his father won’t let him leave the house as punishment. He was not heard from until fifteen years later, when he stabbed his father with a pair of scissors. Many people think that Boo is crazy, but Mr. Radley refused to have his son sent to a mental hospital.
