Caitlin's brother Devon was killed during a school shooting similar to Columbine. Her father cries everyday and Caitlin struggles to understand his emotion. She is a ten year old girl with Asperger's syndrome. To her emotions are represented by the Facial Expression chart in her counselors office. Also she needs concrete answers for everything and looks to her dictionary often. Since she doesn't feel any real emotion she has a tough time Getting It when someone is sad. Caitlin is extremely smart and a very talented artist. Since she shows no true emotions she has difficulty in social situations. She has to remember to Look at The Person and tries to practice empathy. On TV, a reporter interviews the kid responsible for the shooting who is not remorseful for what he did. The reporter mentions that the town is still looking for Closure from the traumatic event. After Caitlin looks it up in the dictionary, she tries to find Closure for her dad. Since closure isn't a concrete object, she has a tough time figuring out how to give it to her dad. Their journey to find closure is the main concept of the book.
I loved the style of the language used. It enhances the point of view and creates an odd but likeable main character. There are no quotation marks used for the dialogue. Instead, they are simply italicized. She also capitalizes letters of words that would normally be grammatically incorrect to do so. It's mainly because these words mean more than what they imply. For instance, her teacher marks her off on an assignment for capitalizing the word "Heart". Caitlin does this because her brother's heart came out and that's how he died. It's not just any heart but his, which has more meaning attached to it.
I don't think this book would be a good one to have an entire class read. Some students may struggle with identifying with Caitlin, especially since she has Aspergers. However, I would recommend this book to a student if I was confident that they would be able to fully understand and appreciate it. It would be a wonderful way to understand what it would be like to have it. I think it would help students become more welcoming and open minded to others. It won many awards, including being a National Book Award Finalist.
Here is a LINK... to author's website. There is a wealth of information including the sources used for Mockingbird.
This book seems very deep. It seems to have a lot of tough issues while being very inspiring. I wonder at what grade level this would be appropriate to introduce in? Great post!
ReplyDeleteSounds like a fascinating book. I haven't read it but I strongly agree that you need to be careful about bringing this book into a classroom especially if students might have difficulties connecting to the character. On the other hand though I think it might be a fabulous book for a classroom because it can open up the eyes of some individuals who are trying to figure out where their place in the world is and can tie into a weird form of multicultural literature. This can introduce students to the culture of children with special needs which I think is important in a classroom. As I said though I haven't read the book, but I would probably consider it based on whether or not it introduces that culture. Great post, look forward to reading the book!
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