Recently, Nelle Harper Lee, critically acclaimed author of the popular novel "To Kill a Mockingbird", passed away at age 89—only several months after she released another novel, "Go Set a Watchman" which is said to be a prequel to her first famous tale.

When I heard the news of Harper Lee’s passing, I initially brushed it off my shoulder as most people would and carried on with my day to day routines. As I thought about it, however, I remembered the first time I ever read "Mockingbird". As we all know, it’s a popular novel within the American school system and has probably impacted more lives than we, or Harper, will ever know.

I vividly remember sitting in my stuffy eighth grade English classroom, pretending to dread the task of another assigned reading so I could blend in with the other moans and groans of my peers. In reality, I was excited about this new piece of literature with a black & white cover I held in my hands. I had no idea what it was about, or how it would change my perceptions on literature. All I knew was that I was a nerdy eighth grade girl and I liked to read.

Up until that point, the extent of my personal library had consisted of "Magic Tree House" books and whole lot of "Harry Potter". Needless to say, I was in for a bit of a shock when my class had been assigned a novel with controversial topics that, for the previous years of my school career, I had been sheltered from.

Now that Harper Lee has passed and I’m delving into this topic for the first time, I can’t say that I can think of a better time in my life to have been exposed to that piece of literary art. There are valid arguments saying that maybe middle school is too young for students to be exposed to racism, judgment and other recurring themes throughout the novel. However, in eighth grade Harper Lee taught me some serious lessons that I otherwise wouldn’t have taken seriously if they were brought to my attention in any other way.

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it”

-Harper Lee, "To Kill a Mockingbird"

We all had this golden rule of “treat others they way you want to be treated” inside of our heads at some point in our lives. For me, however (and I’m assuming for many of you reading this) the notion of this “rule” or concept didn’t resonate with me until I read about the lives of Atticus Finch, Boo Radley, and so many other influential characters. Until the picture played out in my head of what judgment really was and what it meant to be judgmental in this world, I was hardly concerned with how my actions affected others.

Despite these life lessons, Harper Lee left me with a novel that I’ll cherish forever. "To Kill a Mockingbird" made me fall deeper in love with the action of reading more than I ever had before. It showed me how much a piece of literature can be a safety blanket and what it feels like to be involved in a character’s life.

For that, I will be forever endowed to Ms. Lee and her endless talent for bringing fiction to life and presenting controversial issues and topics in such an elegantly beautiful way.

Here’s to you, Harper Lee. May you rest in peace.