The other choice book that I read this summer was A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gains. It takes place around twenty or so years ago in the south. A man named Jefferson (black) was a bystander in the murder of a store clerk and is sentenced to death. His attorney compared Jefferson to hog, saying how his execution would be the same as killing a hog. Jefferson's grandma calls upon Grant, a school teacher, to teach Jefferson to die with dignity, and not like the hog his attorney portrayed of him.

Over the course of the book I saw tremendous change in the attitude of the characters, especially Jefferson. He goes from the felling of worthlessness to having self value. Grant becomes friends with both Jefferson and the Deputy.

The thing about this book that I found interesting was how Jefferson and his community dealt with the racism and wrongful sentence and that it has the theme that everybody has value and everybody deserves to die with dignity.