The  fictional “tired old town” of Maycomb, Ala., has captured the imaginations of high school students across the globe during the last 50 years as the setting of the iconic Southern novel that instilled in American culture that “it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.””It’s a powerful book, and it captures a moment in time,” said Steven Bickmore, a University professor who teaches secondary English education. “It gives you a lot to think about, and it’s had quite an impact. Even 10 years after first being published, it was considered a type of classic and was entrenched in both American culture and the education system.”The 1961 fiction Pulitzer Prize winner “To Kill a Mockingbird” is translated into more than 40 languages, has sold more than 30 million copies and was adapted into a 1962 movie version that won three Oscars, according to the Smithsonian. The landmark piece of literature celebrated its 50th publication anniversary July 11, and readers today are still taking from the novel relevant social commentary, including themes of race relations, gender issues and life in the South.”As an adult, students can pull different things from the book,” Bickmore said. “Adolescents will quickly identify with characters like Scout and Jem, who face adolescent issues, but college students can start to look at Atticus and see these big-time adult decisions he has to make.”The book is narrated by Scout Finch, who watches with her older brother Jem as their lawyer father Atticus defends a black man accused of raping a white woman. The children struggle with racial backlash from the community because of Atticus’ client and are ultimately saved by the mysterious Boo Radley, the reclusive neighbor who leaves gifts for the children in a tree.”There are so many little stories inside of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,'” said Susan Weinstein, assistant English professor. “There is a lot for people to latch on to and relate to.” Nancy Colyar, assistant dean of LSU Libraries, said her department has a total of six print copies of the novel in circulation with an additional two videocassettes and one LP recording in the collection. Since each of these editions has been available, they have been checked out a total of 356 times, she said. Bickmore guesses 75 percent of American high schools teach the book, and Weinstein taught the novel in Bolivia, where she said high school students reaffirmed the American racial tensions shown in other media coming from the states. Patricia Suchy, a performance studies professor in the Department of Communication Studies, “had a fascination” with “To Kill a Mockingbird” when she first read it during high school, and at the University she sponsored a performance about the book in the HopKins Black Box Theatre. The 2004 performance “13 Ways To Kill a Mockingbird” used videos, live performances and other visuals to tackle the book’s many angles. Suchy said she realized the book meant different things to people, and she wanted to capture its entire essence in the performance, which she later adapted into an interactive online experience. “Instead of trying to say ‘this is the way you should read the novel,’ we wanted to take many aspects of the book,” Suchy said. “It showed 13 different ways of looking at the book but letting the audience wander around [the theatre] to see the different portions.”Harper Lee, who wrote “To Kill a Mockingbird,” has been notoriously reclusive since the book’s publication and did not follow her first novel with a second. Though she rarely grants interviews or makes public appearances, Lee traveled in 2007 to the White House, where she received from President George W. Bush the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S.”There is something about the person who comes out with one great book and then just disappears that appears to our imagination somehow because of the mystery,” Weinstein said.–Contact Nicholas Persac at [email protected]