ALABAMA SPITFIRE: Classroom & Event Activities Honoring Harper Lee and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

Best Users: Classroom Teachers, Librarians, Booksellers, Girl Scouts, Home Learning
Best Audience: Children Grades 01-05
 

EXPLORE & DOWNLOAD THE ACTIVITIES

“From the get-go she was a spitfire.”
—Alabama Spitfire

Author Bethany Hegedus calls “Nelle” Harper Lee and her friend “Tru” Truman Capote, “spitfires.” With this activity, readers can define “spitfires” in words and/or pictures.
DOWNLOAD Alabama Spitfire: Defining Spitfire (PDF)
 

 

“But Nelle was stubborn, and her Alabama spitfire streak would not 
let her give up.” —Alabama Spitfire

With this activity, readers explore the traits of a spitfire and locate and review other spitfire biographies.
DOWNLOAD Alabama Spitfire: Spitfire Biographies (PDF)
 

 

“Tell the story you were born to tell.”
—Author Bethany Hegedus

Author Bethany Hegedus and illustrator Erin McGuire define spitfire behavior in this poster for classrooms, libraries, and homes!
DOWNLOAD Alabama Spitfire: Spitfire Poster (PDF)
 

 

“Nelle loved words. Words had weight. Words held meaning.”
—Alabama Spitfire

HarperCollins created a classroom guide for their new non-fiction celebrating great women in history
DOWNLOAD Celebrate Great Women in History (HarperCollins) (PDF)
 

 

EXPLORE THE VIDEOS

Author Bethany Hegedus on growing up reading To Kill a Mockingbird:


 
Author Bethany Hegedus on the friendship between Harper Lee and Truman Capote:


 

Bethany Hegedus and other children’s book creators discuss their books and the campaign to #BeASpitfire. Look for more of those videos here.


 

ABOUT THE BOOK

Alabama Spitfire:
The Story of Harper Lee
and To Kill a Mockingbird
By Bethany Hegedus
Illustrated by Erin McGuire
Published by HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN-13: 9780062456700
Age Range: 4 – 8 Years

Nelle Harper Lee grew up in the rocky red soil of Monroeville, Alabama. From the get-go she was a spitfire.

Unlike most girls at that time and place, Nelle preferred overalls to dresses and climbing trees to tea parties. Nelle loved to watch her daddy try cases in the courtroom. And she and her best friend, Tru, devoured books and wrote stories of their own. More than anything Nelle loved words.

This love eventually took her all the way to New York City, where she dreamed of becoming a writer. Any chance she had, Nelle sat at her typewriter, writing, revising, and chasing her dream. Nelle wouldn’t give up—not until she discovered the right story, the one she was born to tell.

Finally, that story came to her, and Nelle, inspired by her childhood, penned To Kill a Mockingbird. A groundbreaking book about small-town injustice that has sold over forty million copies, Nelle’s novel resonated with readers the world over, who, through reading, learned what it was like to climb into someone else’s skin and walk around in it.

“McGuire’s cinematic cartoons call to mind scenes from the To Kill a Mockingbird film—with her chestnut bob and overalls, Nelle readily resembles Mary Badham’s Scout. It’s an affectionate ode to a writer who “carved out a life of her own design,” as Hegedus eloquently puts it.“
—Publishers Weekly
.
“Hegedus’s picture book biography tells how Lee wrote a still much beloved novel by basing her main character, Atticus Finch, on her father and using people from her childhood as a source for other characters. Digital illustrations, created using Adobe Photoshop, admirably show Lee’s experiences in Alabama and in New York City. A variety of visual perspectives and faces that portray emotions add much to this informational book of a prominent U.S. author.“
—School Library Journal
.
“…clearly a labor of love, and teachers of To Kill a Mockingbird might read it aloud for the glimpses it offers into the origins of the novel.”
—Kirkus Reviews