Review of Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine

~Caitlin has Asperger's. The world according to her is black and white; anything in between is confusing. Before, when things got confusing, Caitlin went to her older brother, Devon, for help. But Devon has died, and Caitlin's dad is so distraught that he is just not helpful. Caitlin wants everything to go back to the way things were, but she doesn't know how to do that. Then she comes across the word closure and she realizes this is what she needs. And in her search for it, Caitlin discovers that the world may not be black and white after all.~

Most "normal" people have issues when it comes to finding closure.

Now imagine you are a young girl with Asperger's who is trying to find some closure when it comes to the senseless shooting of her older brother. Imagine how hard "closure" must be to find for her.

Mockingbird is a short but informative and enlightening story about Caitlin's search for closure after her older brother is killed in a school shooting. Most people treat her like she is a freak, and most assume she has no idea what has actually happened. But she does. She just doesn't know how to show it well to others. She knows her brother is never coming home again. And it's slowly breaking her apart inside. Then one night on the news she hears the word "closure", and just knows she has to find some...but not just for her...for her father as well.

Erskine has wonderful flow to her writing and she seems to have a deep insight into the ways an Asperger's child sees the world. It doesn't seem fake or forced at any time. I would even go so far as to say this is a flawless read.

This book really opened my eyes up to the way children with Asperger's perceive the world around them. Caitlin is a very literal child, she sees the world in black and white, and she doesn't see the shades or colours in between. If you told her to jump off a cliff she would tilt her head to the side so she could get a better look at you and reply with why would you want me to do that. And she would be completely serious. She has trouble understanding emotion and meets with a helper to try to match images of emotions to what they mean. She has to be taught how to make friends.

My son has similar issues which is why I chose this book, and as I mentioned about this book really opened my eyes to how he might see and react to the world around him. I have asked him to read this book as one of his summer read projects so we can talk about it together. I hope we both get something really positive from this experience.

This book was one of the ten books I chose for my YA Summer Reading Challenge. I am thankful the list gave me the opportunity to read this as I don't believe I would have picked this up on my own volition. 

My rating?

5 stupendous scribble spiders out of 5!