I thought that The Big Read with Mary Bedham, the 10-year-old actress who played the role of Scout in the movie To Kill a Mockingbird, was actually very interesting. It was cool how she went into such depth when she would answer the questions that the audience asked her.

Mary kept me interested in what she was talking about the whole time I was at at Sunnyside High School on March 20.

She said that all the people on the set of the movie were her family. She also said that she was closer to Phillip than she was to her own brothers. The movie took five months to shoot.

She talked about how much racism was going on in Birmingham, Alabama, at the time and it was really sad how all that stuff happened. She was going into town on the bus with her nanny Beady, who was an African American, and they accidentally sat one seat too far up.

The story continued as this huge bald white man came up to them and started yelling at them, saying horrible things. Mary was only about six years old when that happened. That was the first racial thing she really saw and she has never forgotten it.

When she moved to California for those five months and saw different ethnic families living in the same neighborhood, it was weird for her but she enjoyed it. When she moved back to Alabama it was hard for her to adjust, not being able to talk to just anyone she wanted. Mary hated it there, so when she was old enough her sister-in-law helped her move west.

She talked about that crazy dog that ran towards her of Phillip, and how they got him to look crazy. She said they put peanut butter in his mouth and tied one of his hind legs to the front leg, so he would not really walk straight. That was funny how she got all into that story.

Her most enjoyable moment when she was filming was when she got to read to Atticus. Her father was always gone so she never got to do stuff like that with him. She said the hardest scene for her to do was when she and Phillip went to the jail to go see Atticus. This was the hardest scene because it was the last one and she did not want it to be over so it was really difficult for her to concentrate.

I really enjoyed how Mary was so enthusiastic with her stories she was telling us. I would have pleased to meet her; she seemed like a very nice woman. She has lived through a lot in her life but that has what made to become who she is today.