To Kill A mockingbird chapter summary

Chapter 1

To Kill a Mockingbird starts as Jem brakes his arm at the age of 13 and we get introduced to the town of Maycomb and the characters that live there. Maycomb, as we find out, is a hot and tired town in Alabama. There is nothing to buy there and nothing to buy it with.

Scout Finch (also the narrator of the book) lives with her older brother Jem, their father Atticus, the local lawyer and their cook Calpurnia. The story starts at the start of summer. Scout is six and Jem is ten, they encounter a scrawny boy who is hiding in next doors turnips called Dill. They instantly become friends and they spend the rest of the summer together trying to make Boo Radley appear from his house in the corner. Legend has it that Mr Boo Radley has never been out of his house and all the small crimes in Maycomb are due to him.

When their games from the start of summer begin to get boring they move on to dares. Dill dares Jem to run up to the Radley house, touch it and run back. He finally accomplishes the dare and keeps his reputation for always doing a dare but after 3 days consolidating about it.

Chapter 2

Chapter two starts as Dill leaves to go back to his home country of the Meridian and scout starts her first day at school. But it’s not all it’s cracked up to be and she’s determined not to ever go back again after an eventful first day in trying to explain to her new teacher about the backgrounds of one of her classmates Walter Cunningham. Her new teacher, Miss Caroline Fisher, tries to offer to pay for Walters’ lunch by offering him a quarter - seems like a nice thing to do – but the Cunningham’s never take anything they can’t pay back so Walter denies the kind offer. As she tries to explain the Cunningham’s family history she’s accused of lying and also being too clever for her age. She’s told to tell her father, Atticus, to stop teaching her at home as it would interrupt with her reading and Miss Caroline’s teachings and she’s beaten with a ruler.

Chapter 3

Chapter three is opened with scout pushing Walter Cunningham to the floor before Jem stops her from beating him up. Jem then invites Walter round for lunch at their house – much to scouts distaste. Scouts day doesn’t improve when she embarrasses Walter at the table and Calpurnia and her are forced to eat in the kitchen.

The next day at school, as if the first wasn't bad enough, Miss Caroline is found screaming at a rodent which has crawled out of Burris Ewell's hair. Miss Caroline attempts to send Burris home but he retaliates, calling her a 'snot-nosed slut of a teacher' before he runs off and leaves Miss Caroline in tears and for the other classmates to cheer her up.

Scout returns home to tell Atticus about her first couple of days at home when he states 'you never really understand a person until you consider things from their point of view and until you climb into his skin and walk around in it' (page 35)

Chapter 4

The rest of the school year passes rather slowly for Scout, who endures a curriculum that moves too slowly for her capabilities. After school one day, she passes the Radley's household and sees some tinfoil sticking out of a knothole in the oak tree. And on their last day of school they find two old 'Indian-head' pennies hidden in the same knothole as the tinfoil (later found out to be chewing gum)

When summer eventually returns at last and Dill returns to Maycomb, the three begin their games again. However their next game will be their most devious yet, they're going to play 'Boo-Radley.' This entails the three children acting out a melodrama of the Radley household and when Atticus catches them, they start to wonder whether playing 'Boo-Radley' was such a good idea in the first place.

Chapter 5

Jem and Dill begin to grow closer to each other and Scout seems to be left out of their friendship and as a result begins to spend more time with her neighbour Miss Maudie Atkinson who was Atticus' childhood friend. She embarks on telling Scout that Mr Boo Radley is in fact alive, however his real name is Arthur Radley and he is a 'foot-washing Baptist' (Baptists who believe that most people are going to hell) She also adds that Arthur was a very polite child with manners and she doesn't believe the rumours spread about him.

Meanwhile, Jem and Dill continue to play and plan on giving a note to Boo Radley, inviting him out to greet the children and get ice-cream. They try sticking the note on a fishing rod and putting it through the window of the Radley house, but Atticus catches them and orders them to stop tormenting the poor man.

Chapter 6

Jem and Dill obey Atticus' orders until Dill's last day in Maycomb when he and Jem plan to sneak over to the Radley house and peek in through a loose shutter. Scout, unwilling to let them go alone, joins in with their game and they creep around the house, peering through all the windows. Suddenly they see a shadow of a man in a hat and assume its Mr Radley but their thoughts are interrupted by a shotgun going off behind them. They escape under a fence by the school yard, but Jem loses his pants and has to go retrieve them later that night.

The children return home, where they meet a gathering of the neighbourhood’s adults who seem to have gathered around Mr Radley's house. Miss Maudie says that Mr. Nathan Radley shot a Negro in his yard. When Atticus asks as to where Jem's pants are, Dill lies about them gambling down by the school yard and Jem gets his pants back later that night.