Celebrating David's Retirement

Today we celebrated David Stanley's 26 years of service to Seton Hill as the Director of Reeves Memorial Library. Dr. Stanley will be retiring at the end of next week and will be sorely missed by many on the Hill! (For those attending Fall Workshop, he does plan to attend the reception honoring retirees at the end of the second day.) Please join us in wishing him the best!

Friday Reads: To Kill a Mockingbird

This Friday, Dr. Stanley shares a book that is probably familiar to most of us and which always makes me (Kelly) think of summer: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. As with many classics, there is always something new to find with a re-read!

I like to spend some of my time during the summer re-reading books that I’ve read before. It doesn’t matter if I read it recently or many years ago. It doesn’t matter if I’ve read it just once before or more times than I can remember. It’s a great time to revisit old friends. One of my choices this summer has been To Kill a Mockingbird. This may have been one of the first novels I read growing up so it’s always held a special place for me. If you’ve seen the movie but not read the book, I think you’d be surprised how different they are. While the movie tells the general story the book is much more all-encompassing of the events that took place during that period in America. Granted there are some disturbing sections but it tells the story of the era. The past is not always pleasant as is pointed out in the plot. You get to learn more about Scout, Jem, and Dill; their personalities give you a more fleshed out perspective. Calpurnia is not just a background character; she interacts at a much deeper level and plays an active part in exploring the racial issues that arise. There are many subplots that are explored and they all work together to made this a difficult albeit excellent summer read.