It occured to me that in all 12 years of my public school education I was only required to read two books that had female protagonist—To Kill a Mockingbird and The Scarlet Letter. Thank goodness for Scout and Hester or I would have assumed women did nothing noteworthy. On second thought, TKAM is really about Atticus Finch and Hester Prynne served as a cautionary tale of what would happen to young ladies who dared to step out of line or make a mistake.