Students eat to help digest classic novel

Greenbrier High School students received a taste of great literature Feb. 2.

Inspired by Harper Lee's classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird, lunchroom workers prepared a special meal of dishes detailed in the book.

"Food is a central theme throughout the book, along with small-town Southern life," said Melissa Hall, a ninth-grade language arts teacher at Greenbrier who came up with the idea for the lunch.

"We've been teaching the book in class, and all of the other students have had to read it as well," Hall said.

The menu included Finch's fried chicken, Pass the ham, Boo Radley's butterbeans, Aunt Alexandra's ambrosia, Ewell's yummy potato salad, Calpurnia's cornbread and Jem's jammin' 'nanna puddin'.

"A lot of these grew up with this kind of food, but some haven't had everything that was on the menu," Hall said.

Chandler Moody, a ninth-grader in Hall's class, said the lunch was not only nostalgic of the Depression-era South, the setting of the novel, but also for his own life.

"This is the kind of stuff my grandparents would make on Sundays," the 14-year-old said. "It reminds me of them, and I think that helps relate to the book better."

To add to the aura of the lunch, teacher Jennifer Lowery put up banners printed with quotes from the novel around the cafeteria.

Lowery also developed a PowerPoint presentation to be shown during the lunch period displaying scenes from the Gregory Peck film based on the book, photos from the Great Depression, student drawings of Boo Radley and students' poems about life during the depression.

Pam Wisham, Greenbrier's lunchroom manager, said her crew served 1,038 lunches Feb. 2. Of that, 606 students and 36 adults chose Finch's fried chicken, while 16 students and one adult picked Pass the ham.

Wisham said she hopes to turn the lunch into an annual event.

"It was a lot of work, but I think it's a great idea," she said. "It's been very popular so far and I hope to do this again."