To Kill a Mockingbird

Scout lives with her brother Jem and their widowed father Atticus, a lawyer in Alabama. Atticus is assigned to defend a black man named Tom Robinson, who has been accused of raping Mayella Ewell, a white woman. The citizens of Maycomb are angry that he agrees to defend Tom. Jem and Scout are then subjected to the taunts of "nigger-lover" from other children. Atticus shows that the accusers, Mayella Ewell and her father, the town drunk Bob Ewell, are lying. Despite Tom's innocence, he is convicted. Jem's faith in justice is badly shaken as is Atticus' when a hopeless Tom is shot and killed while trying to escape from prison.