“Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the tree house; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape.”

Why is it great? I love how Lee has written this line: It tumbles out of Scout’s head exactly like the thoughts of a 6-year-old child, all “this and this and this and especially this.” And it also captures the joys of summer, that season when a child in particular feels things most acutely, but so do the rest of us. Oh, and canny readers will notice that I left off the last phrase in the series: “but most of all, summer was Dill.” I thought that would require explanation (Dill being Scout’s summertime friend), and once you start having to explain a sentence, the beauty is lost. I think the rhythm is still wonderful without it.