Childhood is a continuous period of learning, where you see mistakes and use them to change your perspective. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee illustrates how two children learn from people and their actions to respect everyone, regardless of how they might appear on the outside. To Kill A Mockingbird tells the story of two kids named Scout and her older brother Jem Finch who grow up in their small racist town of Maycomb, Alabama. As the years pass, they discover that their city and many of the people who live there are not as perfect as they may have seemed before. When Atticus, Jem and Scout's father, defends a black man in court, the town's imperfections begin to show. A sour little man named Bob Ewell even tries to kill Jem and Scout because of the help Atticus gave the black man named Tom Robinson. Throughout the novel, Harper Lee illustrates the central theme that it is wrong to judge someone by their outward appearance, or belittle someone because they are different. In this book, Harper Lee clearly demonstrates the importance of not judging a book by its cover. in the person of Boo Radley. Boo was a boy never seen outside the house since he was caught by the authorities involved in some crime. Word had spread that he was locked up at home and chained to his bed by his overly religious family. Since people never really knew what Boo looked like, Jem made up his own theory. “Boo was six and a half feet tall judging by his tracks; he ate raw squirrels and all the cats he could catch, that's why his hands were stained with blood: if you ate a raw animal you could never wash the blood off. There was a long jagged scar running across his face…” (13). Although no one really knew Boo, he was blamed for everything that went wrong in the town. As the story progresses, Boo begins to secretly involve himself in Jem and Scout's lives. He does things like put a blanket over Scout's shoulders during a fire at Miss Maudie's house. “You were so busy looking at the fire; you didn't know when he put the blanket over you.