"Mockingbird" turns 50 with grace

This summer is the 50th anniversary of Harper Lee's poignant, powerful Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird." Today is, in fact, the 50-year anniversary. The book was published July 11, 1960.

I own a first edition hardcover, which might be worth serious money if it still had the dust jacket. It doesn't because in 1966 or 1967, I took my crayons and added colorful birds to the muted leaves on the tree that adorns the cover. They weren't very good because I was talentless as a...