Harper Lee’s controversial second novel, Go Set a Watchman, was published this summer. Set twenty years after the events of To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout returns home to Maycomb to visit her father, Atticus, where she struggles with personal and political issues as her small Alabama town adjusts to the turbulent events beginning to transform the country in the mid-1950s.
Find Lee’s novels and these thought-provoking read-alikes at the Lititz Public Library.
Let Me Die in His Footsteps by Lori Roy
When, in 1952 Kentucky, a fifteen-year-old girl sneaks onto a rival family’s property and discovers a dead body she is forced to confront dangerous events from the past.
Ruby by Cynthia Bond
A young woman, who fled her small East Texas town for the bright pull of 1950s New York City, returns home for a funeral and finds herself reliving the violence of her girlhood.
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
Set in rural Mississippi during the late 1970s, the friendship between two teenaged boys – one the child of lower-middle-class white parents and the other the son of a poor, single black mother – is broken when a girl goes missing.
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Facing a trio of racists in 1960s South Carolina, and carrying the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed, a young girl and her caretaker flee to the rural town that holds the secret to her mother’s past.
My Sunshine Away by M.O. Walsh
A man reflects on the summer of his fourteenth year when he fell in love with a golden-haired, girl-next-door and a horrendous crime shattered his idyllic Baton Rouge neighborhood.
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Nearing the end of his years in 1956, a minister writes an account of his life and his forebears for his young son.
A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash
Growing up in a small North Carolina town, a boy is plunged into an adulthood for which he is not prepared when his autistic, older brother sees something that sets off a series of catastrophic repercussions.
Neverhome by Laird Hunt
A farmer’s faithful wife dons the uniform of a Union soldier in the Civil War and through bloodshed and heartbreak becomes a hero, folk legend and traitor to the American cause.
The Little Friend by Donna Tartt
One summer in Mississippi, a twelve-year-old girl resolves to solve the mystery of her brother’s unsolved murder and exact her revenge.
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
A 1954 murder trial in an island community off the coast of Washington state becomes an exploration of war, race and human motivation.
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
In 1960s Minnesota, an eleven-year-old boy and his family undertake a cross-country search for his older brother who escaped from jail after killing two marauders.
Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell
Before a sixteen-year-old girl can escape her life of poverty and join the Army she knows she must find the father who skipped bail and put her family at risk of losing their home.
We Are All Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg
In the summer of 1964, with tensions mounting over civil rights demonstrations, a Tupelo, Mississippi mother, challenged by the effects of the polio she contracted during her last month of pregnancy, is determined to raise her daughter and live as normal a life as possible.
August 14, 2015