Bookish: To Kill a Mockingbird

So, I finally got around to reading Harper Lee's classic, To Kill a Mockingbird. I was never assigned this in school and somehow never read it (or saw the movie) until now. I must say that its status as a classic is fully deserved. The story of two kids growing up in a small Southern town with no mother and an older father whom they don't always understand (and whom they call by his frst name). Their father becomes involved in representing a black defendant in an unfair rape trial, and reading about the trial and the town's and the children's reactions to it is compelling. The trial is important and a big part of the book, but the book is also just about growing up and trying to understand the world you were born into. It's about kindness and not judging others or fearing the unknown. I did wonder, after the trial and after the death, where Harper Lee was going with the remaining 7 chapters or so, but she wrapped things up quite nicely. There is some language in the book, but it is indicative of and appropriate to the time period.