Dill arrives in Maycomb for the summer and befriends Scout and Jem.

Jem accepts Dill's dare and runs up to touch the Radley house.

Scout and Jem discover small gifts left for them in the Radley tree knothole.

Nathan Radley fills the gift knothole with cement, cutting off the children's connection to Boo.

Miss Maudie's house burns to the ground overnight while the neighborhood watches.

Atticus tells Scout and Jem he has been appointed to defend Tom Robinson.

Atticus sits alone outside the town jail to protect Tom Robinson through the night.

Scout recognizes Mr. Cunningham in the mob and speaks to him about his son and his entailment.

Tom Robinson's trial opens and Sheriff Heck Tate testifies about the night of the alleged crime.

Bob Ewell signs his name in court with his left hand, revealing he is left-handed.

The all-White jury returns a guilty verdict against Tom Robinson despite Atticus's defense.

Tom Robinson is shot and killed by prison guards while attempting to escape.

Bob Ewell attacks Scout and Jem in the dark woods as they walk home from the Halloween pageant.

A mysterious figure rescues Scout and Jem from the attack and carries Jem to safety.

Scout walks Boo Radley to his front door and reflects on Atticus's lesson about empathy.

The novel opens in Maycomb, Alabama, where Scout, Jem, and their summer friend Dill become obsessed with their reclusive neighbor Boo Radley, who secretly leaves them small gifts in a tree knothole before his brother Nathan seals it with cement. When Atticus Finch is appointed to defend Tom Robinson, a Black man falsely accused of raping a White woman, the family faces hostility from their community, culminating in a lynch mob that Scout unexpectedly disbands by appealing to a man she recognizes in the crowd. The trial of Tom Robinson becomes the defining event of the children's lives, with Atticus dismantling the prosecution's case while a racially prejudiced jury convicts Tom regardless. After the verdict, Tom is shot dead trying to escape prison, and the man behind the false accusation, Bob Ewell, vows revenge on the Finch family. Ewell's retribution comes during a nighttime Halloween attack on Scout and Jem, from which a mysterious figure rescues them. The rescuer is revealed as Boo Radley, and Scout's walk home with him brings the novel to its emotional conclusion about the power of empathy.

The headline events driving Maycomb's biggest crisis.

Scout's teacher Miss Caroline punishes her for already knowing how to read before school.

Jem invites Walter Cunningham home for lunch after breaking up a schoolyard fight.

The children sneak through the Radley yard at night to peer through a window.

Jem retrieves his pants from the Radley fence and finds them neatly mended and folded.

The children build a snowman caricature that Atticus says looks too much like their neighbor Mr. Avery.

Scout fights Cecil Jacobs in the schoolyard after he uses a slur about Atticus's Black client.

Scout attacks her cousin Francis at Christmas after he insults Atticus and mocks Dill.

Jem hacks the flowers from Mrs. Dubose's camellia bushes after she uses a slur about Atticus.

Atticus reveals that Mrs. Dubose spent her final weeks successfully beating her morphine addiction.

Calpurnia takes Scout and Jem to worship at her all-Black church, First Purchase.

Aunt Alexandra arrives at the Finch home to help the family during the trial.

Dill is discovered hiding under Scout's bed after running away from his family.

Link Deas interrupts the trial to declare that Tom Robinson has never given him trouble.

The Black community in the courthouse balcony rises to silently honor Atticus as he exits.

Scout recognizes the man standing quietly in the corner of Jem's bedroom as Boo Radley.

While the Robinson trial dominates the novel's second half, Scout and Jem's coming of age is shaped by a string of smaller but deeply consequential events. From Scout's difficult first day at school to Jem's month-long punishment reading to the cantankerous Mrs. Dubose, the children repeatedly confront the gap between their own values and the social rules of Maycomb. Nighttime adventures at the Radley property, Christmas fights over family honor, and the discovery of Boo's mended pants on the fence gradually deepen the children's understanding of their mysterious neighbor. Calpurnia's visit to First Purchase church broadens Scout and Jem's view of Maycomb's Black community, revealing both its poverty and its extraordinary generosity. Aunt Alexandra's arrival and Dill's unexpected appearance under Scout's bed signal the mounting pressure of the trial on the Finch household. After weeks of threat and tension, the novel's climax arrives when Scout finally stands face to face with the man she has both feared and dreamed of meeting: Boo Radley.

The moments that shaped Scout and Jem's coming of age.

Atticus catches the children performing their Boo Radley game and orders them to stop.

Scout hears someone laughing quietly from inside the Radley house during the children's play.

Boo Radley quietly drapes a blanket around Scout's shoulders during the chaos of the fire.

Scout overhears Atticus tell Uncle Jack he worries the trial's ugliness will harm his children.

Atticus tells Scout and Jem that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird.

Atticus shoots the rabid dog Old Tim Johnson dead in the street with a single bullet.

Miss Maudie reveals to the children that Atticus was once the best marksman in Maycomb County.

Atticus tells Jem that real courage means beginning and seeing something through even knowing you will lose.

Reverend Sykes closes the church doors until the congregation collects enough money to support Helen Robinson.

Men arrive at the Finch home to warn Atticus that a mob plans to attack Tom Robinson in jail.

Tom Robinson stands at Atticus's request, revealing his left arm is completely crippled from a gin accident.

Dolphus Raymond reveals to Scout and Dill that his paper bag holds Coca-Cola, not liquor.

Jem weeps after the guilty verdict, telling Atticus that the jury's decision was not right.

Scout realizes her teacher Miss Gates condemned Hitler while expressing contempt for Black residents after the trial.

Sheriff Tate insists Bob Ewell fell on his own knife, protecting Boo Radley from public scrutiny.

Scattered across the novel are pivotal moments of discovery and moral reckoning that shift the children's understanding of the world. Early revelations — laughter from inside the Radley house, Boo's quiet act of placing a blanket on Scout's shoulders during a fire — hint that Boo is a protector rather than a monster. Atticus's warning about killing mockingbirds, his legendary marksmanship against a rabid dog, and his definition of real courage lay the groundwork for how Scout and Jem interpret every moral crisis that follows. The Robinson trial delivers its own cascade of turning points, from Tom Robinson's crippled arm to Dolphus Raymond's unmasking, each exposing the distance between what is true and what the community chooses to believe. Jem's tears after the verdict and Scout's recognition of her teacher's hypocrisy about Hitler mark the full arrival of their moral consciousness. The novel closes with Sheriff Tate's deliberate decision to protect Boo Radley with a white lie, a final lesson that justice sometimes requires bending the law to shield the innocent.