Top ten brothers & sisters in fiction

Sarah Ward is the author of the crime novels In Bitter Chill, A Deadly Thaw, and A Patient Fury. One of her ten top brothers and sisters in fiction, as shared at the Guardian:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

This was my O-level set text and I still love it. Four years older than Scout, Jem is the archetypal older brother, taking charge of the games focused on their reclusive neighbour Boo Radley and taunting Scout with the name “Miss Priss”. The relationship changes as the children grow up, typified by Jem’s adolescent moodiness and instruction to Scout that she isn’t to bother him at school but “stick to the first grade”. By the end of the novel the two are reconciled, and echoes of their old familiarity emerge.

Read about another entry on the list.

To Kill a Mockingbird made Katy Guest's list of six top books for shy readers, Jeff Somers's top ten list of fictional characters based on actual people, Carol Wall's list of five books that changed her, John Bardinelli's list of five authors who became famous after publishing a single novel and never published another one, Ellie Irving's top ten list of quiet heroes and heroines, a list of five books that changed Richelle Mead, Robert Williams's top ten list of loners in fiction, Alyssa Bereznak's top ten list of literary heroes with weird names, Louise Doughty's top ten list of courtroom dramas, Hanna McGrath's top fifteen list of epic epigraphs, the Telegraph's list of ten great meals in literature, Nicole Hill's list of fourteen characters their creators should have spared, Isla Blair's six best books list, Lauren Passell's list of ten pairs of books made better when read together, Charlie Fletcher's top ten list of adventure classics, Sheila Bair's 6 favorite books list, Kathryn Erskine's top ten list of first person narratives, Julia Donaldson's six best books list, TIME magazine's top 10 list of books you were forced to read in school, John Mullan's list of ten of the best lawyers in literature, John Cusack's list of books that made a difference to him, Lisa Scottoline's top ten list of books about justice, and Luke Leitch's list of ten literary one-hit wonders. It is one of Sanjeev Bhaskar's six best books and one of Alexandra Styron's five best stories of fathers and daughters.

--Marshal Zeringue