Miss Lee does write like a woman. She paints Scout in warm tones, and we like the child. (p. 659)

Miss Lee uses high and telling humor when she depicts the myopic do-gooders of the local missionary circle who alternately squealed and sighed over the remote plight of the Mrunas who were safely distant in the dark continent, the while they stirred up a falsely labeled "Christian" hell for the racially different in their home town. Yes, and there was cutting irony and blanched white sarcasm too when the authoress seemingly reaches the outer limits of her fine sense of tolerance even for the bigoted. (p. 660)

Edwin Bruell, in English Journal (copyright © 1964 by The National Council of Teachers of English), December, 1964.