Facebook page, facebook. Com booktv. This is booktv on cspan2 television for serious readers. Heres our prime time lineup. In anticipation of next weeks release of harper lees second book, so get a watchman, booktv presents several programs about the pulitzer prizewinning authors life and writing career. Next Mary Mcdonagh murphy looks at the impact of harper lees to kill a mockingbird. Then at 7 30, maria mills reports on the 18 months she lived next door to harper lee in monroeville, alabama. And at 9 p. M. Eastern on after words, charles shields author of mockingbird a portrait of harper lee, discusses the events leading up to the publication of her new novel go set a watchman. That all happens next on cspan2s booktv. And now heres Mary Mcdonagh murphy, author of Scout Atticus and boo. Good morning everyone. And welcome to the auditorium speaker series. My name is m. Claire knowles and i serve as a member of the American LibraryAssociation Executive board. But i also have a day job and i serve as the assistant dean for Student Services at the graduate school of library and Information Science at Simmons College in boston. I would like to take this opportunity to thank harpercollins for their generous sponsorship of nancy is pearl and Marie Mcdonagh murphys talk today. Before we begin i would like to remind everyone that this evening is the opening general session featuring toni morrison. It starts at 5 30. S the scholarship bash will also take place this evening with buses departing from the Convention Center immediately following the opening general session. If you still need to purchase tickets, you can do so at the bash booth or the registration desk. I would also like to remind everyone to attend the rally on tuesday for Library Advocacy day. En with buses departing from the Convention Center immediately following the closing session. Me lastly dont forget to check out the exhibits and all they have to offer. But first things first. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of to kill a mockingbird, an american classic, nancy pearl will interview Mary Mcdonagh murphy Emmy Awardwinning filmmaker and author of the upcoming book scout, atticus ankd boo. A celebration of 50 years to kill a mockingbird. Nancy pearl is the author of book crush for kids and teens, recommended reading for every mood, moment and interest. And book lust recommended reading for every mood, moment and reason. And more book lust, 1,000 new reading recommendations for every mood moment and reason. All published by sasquatch books. Ms. Pearl will be signing her books tomorrow at 2 p. M. At Publishers Group west, number a 2740. In 2004 ms. Pearl was awarded the women eat National Book association womens National BookAssociation Award given to a living American Woman who has done meritorious work in the world of books beyond the duties or responsibilities of her profession or occupation. Li in 1998 Library Journal named her fiction reviewer of the year. Ms. Mcdonagh murphy will be signing in the harpercollins booth51 2513 at 10 a. M. To 11 a. M. Following todays1 program. Now, please extend a warm welcome for nancy pearl and Mary Mcdonagh murphy. [applause] lause] [applause] it is so nice of you to come out this early to see and here from mary about her knew book. Im just going to jump right in with the questions. Mary how did you come to do this book . One of our alltime favorite books. I was talking to a young woman last night from vanguard press. I knew we were doing this this morning. Amanda do you remember when you 1st read to kill a mockingbird . Mr. Elliott, 7th grade. Thats one of the things i think is so true. Oprah winfrey told me that she really calls this our national novel. It is just one of those novels. You can ask anyone to aa person and they it just has that effect. And so what how did you read it . I almost escaped high School Without reading to kill a mockingbird because it had month not been assigned. H and my mother and sister who know quite a lot about books were talking to me one more than morning, o and somebody mentionedim gem, my sister did, and i said well, thats such a funny name for a girl. And they just crawled across the table saying we cannot believe that you have not read this book. So i read it just as i was leaving high school, and i was completely in the tank for scout. Utterly. El right. Utterly. Did you find as you went on in your life and did other things that that book have become in some ways more important than other books . What happens to me really and the whole reason i started his because of an adult rereading that made a far greater impression that it had when i read it as a young girl. I was more blown away with a novel is a 34 euro person that i have been as an adolescent. A lot of it had to do with the writing itself. Itself. My ready for the 2nd time as a grownup i was like, did i really read this . Theyre was so much that escape me. That is when i began to go exploring and see what i could find out because it was clear that it had an enormous impact both culturally and socially. Should we see the clip . Sure. Who are the quick over theyre. When i was a kid i collected insurrectionary outspoken not girly girls and books. And of green gables and joe march and little women and scout. Irresistible, just irresistible. I thought i was scout. I felt so attached to her. Zero well. What do you think you are doing. A little smarta little smartass. Speaks 1st with her fists. Back of three or four steps. An extension of a hug then character, and american character poking at the boundaries of good taste and what is proper. She does not have a mother. Her childhood is very lonely and it is only her interest in other people that makes it a full childhood. She is an explorer and truly struggles in the way we struggle to figure out how to be in the world. World. Here is scout who believes in things, funny, curious passionate, and a tomboy. I think scout has done more than any other character and literature. Come on in here. Have your breakfast. Alexander was phenomenal. I couldi could not possibly hope to be a lady if i were bridges. Involve playing with small stoves, tea sets, and the pro mac was she gave me when i was born. Furthermore, i should be a ray of sunshine. I suggested that one could be a ray of sunshine advance. A scamp and hysterically funny and no less funny as an adult looking back although in a slightly more fermented and seasoned way. She isshe is just great company. One of the reasons i became so obsessed is because everything that she did convince me that she was just a grownup scout who had not gone over to the dark side. A tired old town eve. A grownup scout is the narrator of to kill a mockingbird. Simultaneously an adult looking back and a child experiencing life in a small town. Difficult feat. Ask any writer. Very, very tough because you have to both be a kid on the street and aware of mad dogs and the spooky houses and have this beautiful vision of how Justice Works and all the creaking mechanisms of the courthouse. Many writers courthouse. Many writers of credit. They do it all the time. Through the childs eyes but with an adult understanding. That is part of why this is a great book and is part of why harper lee is a Great American writer. This is the 50th [applause] and this is the 50th anniversary of the publication of tequila mockingbird. At what time did you realize you would do it . Theyre were two things. I always had an interest in pursuing this is a story. Read the book for a 3rd time. I began to see the knew value. The phenomenon of the book the way the book happened and the impact it had was really quite astonishing. That is i started thinking about the documentary. The documentary came together very close to here and happened because i came to book expo held here about three or four years ago and knew i wanted writers to talk to me about the book and call the head. So sure. Said sure. We can arrange it. I had that. I found a local soundman, spent a lot of money to rent a room across the street knowing i could make it easy for become. In addition to alan was magnificent and lee smith who is just wonderful i trolled the convention where while in and Mark Childress who grew up two doors down and read the book on the porch and is the reason he became a writer. I buttonholed david and. By days end i had five fantastic interviews. Everyone read beautifully, and i knew i had a movie. That was one great day in filmmaking. Ifilmmaking. I take it that does not happen all that frequently . That is what i knew i could keep going. In a letter i read she said people could call her nelly and that was pretty much unacceptable to her opinion was she nervous about publishing this book nervous because of the races issues that were brought up or the picture of without speaking to her directly, it is hard for me to say. I know that her expectations for the book were very low and certainly within her family, aall thought isnt it great now that did this and everybody thought 4,000 copies. But no one expected this kind of popularity and fame. I think that shes called the book a plea for understanding. Which i think is different from a pointed statement about race, and the book, one of the great of the book is that it has a very significant message without preaching for one second. Uhuh had you. Because i dont think it is popularity that would have endured or been there in the first place if it was the kind of book that hit you over the head with this is what you must do to make the world a better place potential castor. Right take it or i think to kill a mockingbird and run of the reasons if you cant get in the front row with scout, you can get him with atticus or miss dobo loneliness race, childhood theres parenting. How you form judgment. And the other thing about this book that is not disgusted is how suspenseful it is. And what grows up around boo is you just cant stop breathing. And if you think about hey boo, the words hay boo it is one of the greatest reveals ever in a book. So yeah. We might want to look at boo. Sounds good. [laughter] inside the house lived a level of phantom. People said he existed people said he win the out at night when the moon was down and peeped in windows. When it was frozen, it was because he had breathed the dawn. And he felt a small crime committed to make him for his works. I mean every kid has had that house in the neighborhood that your friends would dare you to knock at on halloween. Just the whole business of boo and his house by the way is Just Brilliant stuff. Really brilliant stuff. Copy and emulated by prices everywhere. If you look at the way boo bradley keeps coming back and coming back and coming back, you know, youre all sneaking around. Everybody starts sneaking around. It is an incredibly dramatic book. Wonderful. I just found it is a drama that kept going and going, and going, and youre suspecting something which tell you something about yourself. The suspense was unusual and a powerful drama that really did hook you which obviously, i try to do with my books. From the chicken pecan tree shook but the nuts lay untouched by the children and peeked hands. Baseball hit him to the yard with a lost ball, and no questions asked. The misery of that house began many years before jim when i were born. I came over the years to a realization that i bet is true of harper lee as well. You know you start with who and what you know. You said like you take a survey of the lay of the land that formed you and shaped you. And when you begin to lie about it you you tell one lie that turns into a different lie, and after a while those sort of lift off and become their own people rather than the the people you originally thought of. And when you weave an entire network of lies, what youre really doing if youre aiming to write what youre really doing is by telling lies, youre trying to arrive at a deeper truth. One of the things about lets clap [applause] see what i mean about alexander. Hes very fabulous, and at least reading of it is just so it makes you think that thats a book that should be taught even by being read aloud. Teacher dos that and another reason that they love it. Just an earlier editor on the project when we were working and i had scripted it, when everyone reads, they look up sort of rapture after the passage and Say Something so she cut all of that out. And said oh welcome it is just slowing us down. Are you kidding . This is a book when you are taking who else you wanted to interview, i mean one of the strengths of the book, i think is the wide range of people who who spoke to you and why you didnt gel nell as nobody could to speak to you. You did get her sister, her older sister her older sister alice ho is 98, so talk about that experience. That was so proud to have met miss alice to be allowed to interview her at the extent i did. I went to monroeville quite a few time website and i knew that both lee sisters were with readers, so i frequently just sent books that i thought would be of interest. Wrote several letters, several different ways. Through different people. And then on a my second trip to monroeville i asked somebody who knows miss alice to write a letter to her just saying was coming and if he could find it in his heart i was a good egg. I would appreciate it. So on that trip, i dropped something off at the office, and miss alice practices law at burnett bug and lee her father founded off the town square and in the Bank Building. When you walk in, theres this little bird of a woman sitting at her desk doing her property transfers working away, 98 years old. So theres, you know, theres kind of a stop at the door. And i leave a letter, and a book and i go about my business. I leave, i go to interview mary who played scout in the movie. And i emailed an associate sayings i was here if you need to reach me so i got an email from the interview saying miss alice would like to talk to you, are you still in town . So i wrote back and said im close by. [laughter] got on a plane drove back to monroeville. Had a visit with miss alice that went on for a couple of hours and said would you be willing to talk to me on camera she said she would and i found a camera crew and she didnt just talk to me, she gave me five hours and she tutored me in alabama history, and soil, and politics, and all of the anecdotes that she gave me about what their family was like. It was very it really round out i think your picture of lights in monroeville in the 30s and lee family. Do you think plain scout changed married adams life . I do. Interviewing mary is a fascinating and hilarious experience because she was a nineyearold girl in that movie when it was made. Part of it you say okay mary you are on the swing with atticus hes saying that, youre saying that. What do you remember about that scene in she says freeway was crowded and mom wanted to get home early that day. So she remembers it like a nineyearold which is a complete sense. I think it was late i think it was real play time on that set and a great time, and i think it was later in marys life that she realized just is how extraordinary that she had been involved in something extraordinary and, of course, u now she goes around and talks it it quite a lot. Imagine playing your favorite heroine so many peoples favorite. She never acted in anything before. Neither did who played jim which was why i think the way children were cast was so brilliant thirp real children. So im curious because im a librarian and love to read. What books did you send lee sisters . I recently sent lord of finance which i sent her history, the Cornelius Vanderbilt book. I knew they loved between the wars, british between the wars, and history that i sent Robert Franks photos, book i thought that would be interesting. Knob fiction though. Not to miss alice not fiction but thats a sample. Yeah, you can sort of see her sitting in that, in the Bank Building which is a Wonderful Team in your book. Miss alice is a big theme of the sisters i sent her a biography. So yeah. Okay. Well we can give you a suggestion [laughter] really good. But those are i approve of. Those are very good choices. Thank you oh, good. You like them too. Thats nice, though. Did you have time in making your background, you are a film person. Was there a time in the making of this film where you thought i just it is not beginning to come together in the way i see it . I mean, you know, if there were times that it was darkest before the dawn where i was and my husband found me once up in my, you know, office atticus saying why do i think i can make a movie about a book, whose idea was that . But i never sort of doubted that it could i could get to the finish line. I just wasnt always sure how i was going to get there. And the structures a very, very difficult structure and because youre kind of shoe horning what you can find about where the novel came from along with telling the story of the trajectory of the novel. Relationship, and that is and when you make a movie you want enough peaks and valleys so that people stay with it. So the structure was particularly difficult and i think it is successful. So yeah. Definitely think. Most definitely. So since were never going to hear from nell the answer to this question. This particular question. And since youre i think very close to the book and her it seemed from all different perspectives, why do you think that she never wrote another book . As you say it is impossible to answer that. But i can tell you what her sister said. And i have since since the book has finished ive talked on the record to friends of hers as well. But couple of gates were Christmas Money to finish l yeah. And ting i think that kind of success was very overwhelming. I think it was difficult to sit back at your desk after doing a masterpiece job your first time out, a masterpiece and i think some some lights got in the way for her father got sick. She burned her hands. Things happen. But her sister said