[Diana in Wisconsin]

This is by far, one of my very favorite books. Glad to see Ms. Lee is still alive and kickin'!

[SquirrelKing]

If you get a chance, visit her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. The old courthouse, the town and the countryside feel and look just like in the book. I believe they do an open-air play of Mockingbird in the Summertime.

One of the best books ever, IMHO.

[xJones]

A wonderful book, particularly for Southerners who can really appreciate the small Southern town jokes.:)

In reading about Miss lee's life you can certainly see where she found the material for her book: Harper Lee. It's interesting that the character of Dill was based on her childhood friend and neighbor, Truman Capote, and the infamous Scottsboro trial during her childhood definitely formed the rough basis of the rape trial in her one novel.

It's sad that she never wrote another book, but apparently she's always been shy and maybe she feared that people would expect too much of her after "To Kill a Mockingbird".

[GretchenM]

All the kids in the United States read this book and see the film in the seventh and eighth grades and write papers and essays.

I wish this had been the case (in the Washington State school) where I attended seventh and eighth grades.

[k2blader]

Good book, from what I remember of it from 10th grade. I should read it again.

[Sloth]

One of the best books that's actually included as 'classics' in education these days. And the movie is indeed Peck's most memorable role.

[SamAdams76]

Hi, I'm posting from the future.

Did you know that Shepard Smith will be fired from FoxNews in October of 2019?

Nobody on Free Republic has posted anything about it in the present so I thought i'd go to the past and see if it gains any traction there.

[Vision]

The author won the Pulitzer Prize when she was 20?

[Chickensoup]

Many people say her close friend Truman Capote actually wrote the book.

Dill was actually modeled on Truman as a child.