Where did Scout and Jem sit during the trial? How did they feel about being in that balcony?

One of the advantages of putting the children in the front row of the balcony in Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird, of course, is that this postion provides them with a perfect overview of pretty much the entire courtroom. It also subtly suggests that these Finch children and their friend Dill are more closely allied with the blacks in attendance, as they too believe that Tom Robinson is innocent.

Because the novel is told from Scout's perspective, the author sometimes has to invent ways for Scout to know what is going on. More than once, for example, the young character overhears adult conversations that she would normally not have access to. In this trial scene, she is similarly able to overhear the exchanges and survey pretty much all of the action while being out of Atticus' field of vision (see the speculation in Chapter 17 about whether or not their father could even see them, should he turn around and look). She seems even to enjoy the vantage point, even if she doesn't understand the significance of every event in the trial: "from [our seats] we could see everything," the narrator states in Chapter 16.