Great audiobook

Listen to this one.  It will change the way you see the world.

Bibliography:  http://animoto.com/play/GaQ7Lk1O96HlOX32BJ8LfA

Rogers, Angela Jayne, narr.  Mockingbird: (mok’ing-burd).  By Kathryn Erskine.  Recorded Books, 2010.  CD. 

Annotation:

     Caitlin suffers when her big brother, Devon, dies.  Her father, students and teachers, the town suffers too.  Two words - school shooting.  Notably, the novel, Mockingbird: (mok’ing-burd) received the 2010 National Book Award, Young People’s Literature, with nominations for the 2012-2013 Iowa Children’s Choice Award and 2011 ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults. 

Comments:

     Caitlin receives the world with a kind of filter.  She tells the truth, always and tells it until it hurts. Too much sound and movement bother her.  She loves words and the dictionary and draws her pictures, always in black and white.  Friendships do not exist for her, yet, except the one she had with her brother, Devon.  Somehow, Devon got her.  He could see her way.  With their special bond, Caitlin listened to his advice on how not to be a “weirdo”.  She understood that it helped when she dressed more like the other kids do.  She learned that “… you can’t moan or scream or shake your hands over and over in public.”  “… Because that’s not normal…”

     Devon helped her fit in just a little better.  With the shooting, with Devon’s death, she and her father must learn to live again.  That hole that comes to each of us, the hole that we just have to live with when we lose a loved–one, is huge for Caitlin.  Caitlin’s hole is literal.  It is the hole through Devon’s chest and heart made by a bullitt.

     Have I given you enough clues?  Do you recognize behaviors typical of a person with Asperger’s syndrome?  Caitlin uses all of her hard won strategies to find closure and she helps herself as well as all those around her.