In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, how is Boo Radley pre-judged by the kids?

In Harper Lee's To Kill a
Mockingbird, the children are too quick to believe the rumors that have been
spread by the gossips, the uninformed, and the
superstitious.

Because Boo Radley never comes out, they see
him much the way his family has made the community see him: as a ghost, a non-person.
His humanity has been taken away from him, and the children envision him in a very
one-dimensional way. After the fire, when Boo put the blanket around Scout's shoulders,
they seem to somewhat lose their sense that he is a complete monster with jagged teeth
who eats squirrels, though because they fear the house and the rumors, they still fear
Boo to some extent.

Because of the child-like gifts left in
the tree, the childish stitching on Jem's pants and his unobtrusive presence, the
children perhaps begin to see him as if he is one of them. (Even though they are
completely sure at the beginning about who has left the gifts or
sewed the pants.) They don't understand that he has been abused and his very spirit
crushed: I doubt anyone in town realizes this.

Perhaps the
way that they misjudge Boo the most is in believing he is powerless. Once again, I think
the adults could be accused of the same mindset. To the town, Boo is like an old, faded
photograph. He is a part of the past that no one thinks much about—expect Atticus as he
tries to keep the children away to preserve Boo's
privacy.

The irony in their misjudgment of Boo is revealed
under the most dire circumstances: Boo leaves his home, perhaps to follow them and watch
them—maybe drawn by Scout's costume—and he ends up saving their lives. By the end,
however, Scout is able not just to see that Boo is so much more than a shadow, but that
there remains within him the remnants of the southern gentleman his parents started to
raise before he got into trouble. When Scout walks Boo home, with her hand tucked in the
crook of Boo's arm, Scout is sure that even Miss Stephanie could not have found fault
with Scout or Boo's behavior, as if Scout were any young lady out for a civilized walk
with a young man.

Of course, in reality, though Boo is an
unlikely hero, when he returns home, he becomes a ghost to Maycomb again. Boo will live
on in the memories of the Finches and Heck Tate as much more, but Scout notes that once
she leaves him at his house, she never sees him again.