I have always loved Harper Lee’s book, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which I read at the age of 13. Scout, Jem and Dill, with their vivid imaginations and their determination to see the mysterious Boo, who lived in the spooky house, reminded me of the things my cousins and my friends and I used to do.

Our neighborhood, in which all the relatives lived within a few blocks of each other, was a lot like the little town Lee wrote about. Calpurnia, the Finches’ black cook and the disciplinarian of the story could have walked right out of my own house. Aunt Alexandra was much like my own Aunt Mary Alice, who was very concerned with “ladylike” behavior and propriety.

Atticus reminded me of my Uncle Vance Dement, who was a man whose word was his bond and about whom I never heard on negative word. He told me about an ancestor of his who was a local law officer in the 1880s. When a lynch mob got after a black man, the frightened man ran to that white man’s house for sanctuary.

“He stood on the porch with his shotgun refused to turn the black man over the the mob. They killed him and lynched the black man,” he said. He was proud that his family had taken a stand for what was right.

Should somebody ask me about my favorite books, “To Kill a Mockingbird” would be at the top of the list. It has everything I love in a book. There was mystery, innocence, sense of place, conflict and redemption, all within one small book.

The mockingbird is the symbol of innocence, which can so easily be destroyed by the forces of evil. There is no reason to kill a mockingbird for they do no harm, Atticus Finch tells his children. It was a powerful symbol in the book but also a symbol that I could identify with as I woke each morning to the mockingbirds joyous singing outside my open window.

I remember sitting on my front porch in one of the porch rockers (with paint so thick on it you could barely see the cane bottom), feet propped on the banister, reading that book. How I admired Atticus! He was a stalwart champion of good and showed that not all Southerners were racist. Scout and Dill were brave little innocents. Jem took care of his little sister.

Over the years, I have read the speculations that the book was actually written by Truman Capote (on whom Dill was patterned), but I knew better. “To Kill a Mockingbird” was, in many ways, a tender book and the only tender words I’ve ever read by Capote was when he wrote short stories based on his family in Monroeville. I do believe the book utilizes the town, its inhabitants and that Lee and Capote as children were the basis of much of the book. But it wasn’t an autobiography — it transcends biography and has true universal appeal.

Lee was a talented writer who honed her craft over many years. She lived a very frugal life in a cold water flat in New York while writing the book and when it was published it was a huge success, winning he Pulitzer Prize in 1960. The screenplay, in which Gregory Peck portrayed Atticus Finch, won an Academy Award in 1962. To suggest she didn’t write the book is to do a disservice to a talented writer who produced a masterpiece in one small volume.

Nelle Harper Lee still lives in Monroeville and New York (or so I have read) and never seeks the limelight, although sometimes it seeks her. She has written essays, including one in Oprah Winfrey’s magazine O in 2006 in which she wrote about her early love of books. She has won many awards and honorary doctorates over the years.

Just this week she was on hand for the ceremony inducting four new members into the Alabama Academy of Honor, which honors living Alabamians. Lee is a member of the academy.

For me, Lee’s book was perfect and and like the characters who peopled the neighborhood where I grew up, the characters in “To Kill a Mockingbird” remain alive in my memories.

I never understood the speculation about why Lee never wrote another book. Some books are just so perfect and so important they can stand alone. “Gone With the Wind” is such a book. For me, “To Kill a Mockingbird” said it all. Few writers ever get it right the very first time and when they do, perhaps they have said all they need to say.

Lee deserves to rest on the laurels from “To Kill a Mockingbird”, for she wrote a beautiful and moving book that has stood the test of time.

Barbara Grider is staff writer for The Independent. Contact her at bgrider@gulfcoastnewspapers.com.