Question: why did they name the book to kill a mockingbird

title: To Kill a Mockingbird
text: Native Alabamian Allen Barra sharply criticized Lee and the novel in The Wall Street Journal calling Atticus a `` repository of cracker - barrel epigrams '' and the novel represents a `` sugar - coated myth '' of Alabama history . Barra writes , `` It 's time to stop pretending that To Kill a Mockingbird is some kind of timeless classic that ranks with the great works of American literature . Its bloodless liberal humanism is sadly dated '' . Thomas Mallon in The New Yorker criticizes Atticus ' stiff and self - righteous demeanor , and calls Scout `` a kind of highly constructed doll '' whose speech and actions are improbable . Although acknowledging that the novel works , Mallon blasts Lee 's `` wildly unstable '' narrative voice for developing a story about a content neighborhood until it begins to impart morals in the courtroom drama , following with his observation that `` the book has begun to cherish its own goodness '' by the time the case is over . Defending the book , Akin Ajayi writes that justice `` is often complicated , but must always be founded upon the notion of equality and fairness for all . '' Ajayi states that the book forces readers to question issues about race , class , and society , but that it was not written to resolve them .