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I have read the book many years ago and watched the movie twice - also too long ago. I always wanted to read this book again. I was hoping to read it before 2014 was running out and now it happened. I dreaded the moment, but just had to do it.

Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summers day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum. Page 5

I got so emotionally invested in this book that words fail me right now. But if you have not read this all-time classic, which never went out of print since 1960, and probably shouldn't, do yourself a favor and read this heart-wrenching and endearing story of a young girl, named Jean Louise Finch.

This southern Gothic Bildungroman contains autobiographical elements of the author's own life, growing up in Monroeville, Alabama as a tomboy, where her own father was a lawyer and her childhood friend, Truman Capote, turned out to be the character Dill in the story.

The protagonist is the delightful eight-year-old Jean Louise, or Scout, an outspoken young lady who is untrained in being a Southern Lady, is a tomboy who does not stand back in a fist fight, and is educationally way ahead of her class in school. She doesn't like school at all. Her mother passed away, they are raised by their dad when an innocent young African American man, Tom Robinson, is wrongfully convicted for raping a young white women, and in the aftermath a community, rife with racial prejudice and hypocrisy, is ripped apart.

“It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.�� �� Scout Finch

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What I meant was, if Atticus Finch drank until he was drunk he wouldn’t be as hard as some men are at their best. There are just some kind of men who-who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results. Chapter 5

The story plays itself out in the 1930s in rural America and the two children, Scout(Jean Louise) and her older brother, Jem, have to learn lessons about racial injustice, class differences, courage and the loss of innocence when they are not yet ready for it. Atticus Finch, their father, has to steer them through the harsh reality and danger and back lash from the white community, while representing the innocent Tom Robinson.

As I made my way home, I thought Jem and I would get grown but there wasn't much else left for us to learn, except possibly algebra.

Atticus Finch becomes one of the most prominent literary characters of the twentieth century. A man of integrity, fairness and honor.

They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.Chapter 11

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"The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box. As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash." Chapter 23

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"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do." Chapter 11

It will sound bleh to say this, but the prose in the book is just beautiful. Every single element in the book speaks of excellence: the characters, plot, southern cultures, local dialects, environment, historical facts, ambiance, everything! So yes, it is southern charm at its best. I feel humbled and enriched.