A Layered Tale

I am about to admit something I am thoroughly ashamed of...this summer, my 32nd, I read 'To Kill A Mockingbird' for the very first time.  I can't believe it has taken me to my 32nd summer to get around to it.  I mean, I am a voracious reader.  I read 'Gone With The Wind' cover to cover in 4th grade.  I was an English major.  I feel that at least one of my profs failed me there...shouldn't this have been on the reading lists at some point?  I taught high school English for four years, but never this novel.  Oh the tragedy.  I found myself getting drawn into Lee's work the way one might get drawn into a savory meal...one morsel at a time.  For me, it wasn't a novel I tore through, but rather sauntered through slowly.  There are books I come back to again and again, re-reading them to discover further meaning, character flaws I never noticed, quirks to settings the author planted  that I just didn't catch before.  This will be in that group.  Now it sits on my nightstand, as I move on to something else new.  But sooner, rather than later, I will happily pick it up again...waiting to discover more treasures within its pages.  And if any of my former students read this page, you are instructed to immediately go to the library or bookstore, get this book, and read at once.  It is worth every second of your time.