LARS'S LIBRARY: MY REVIEW OF KATHRYN ERSKINE'S "MOCKINGBIRD"

MOCKINGBIRD. By Kathryn Erskine. Philomel Books, 2010. 235 pages.

Mockingbird is a valuable book if only because it has stirred things up a little in the kidlit world. Some of the point/counterpoint I’ve seen:

It should have just been about death. It should have just been about differences—a kid on the autism spectrum.

The first-person depiction of Asperger’s syndrome is inaccurate. The first-person depiction of Asperger’s is perfectly rendered.

The combination of school shooting, a death in the family, and developmental disorder is too depressing for a children’s book. A school shooting, a death in the family, and a developmental disorder are presented in a clear way for kids who are curious about these subjects.

It’s too cutesy. It’s quite touching.

Such divergent opinions about this nominee for the 2010 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature avoid the central issue: Was it a good story? Did you buy into the premise?

I’m going with a qualified yes. A little sappy, like any sweet story, with a resolution that’s maybe a little too pat, but still managed to bring tears to my eyes.

Caitlin, the first-person narrator, is diagnosed with Asperger’s. A fifth-grader mainstreamed into regular education in her suburban Virginia school, she lives with her lonely and distraught father.

Caitlin’s mother died when she was a baby, and her older brother Devon has since been her emotional mainstay. As ‘Mockingbird’ opens, Devon has been killed in the most random of ways—a school shooting by another student. In an author’s note, Erskine says the 2007 Virginia Tech tragedy prompted her to write the novel.

Mockingbird’s plot—Caitlin’s quest to find closure—bears up under the pressure of weaving together these multiple and solemn strands, often with gentle humor.

Children on the autism spectrum can feel sadness and loss, as well as joy and belonging, just as deeply as ‘normal’ people do. Their expression of feeling can be fresh and unique, if only we can learn to draw it out and they can learn how to frame it.

Writing a novel is difficult for anyone, and getting inside someone else’s mind is impossible, so books like this and Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time require a suspension of disbelief that can only be caused by story and language that ring true. Like Haddon, Erskine uses the character of Caitland to illuminate literal thinking, obsessive attention, and repetitive behavior in a believable way that is consistent with the criteria for pervasive developmental disorders.

Erskine’s own attention to realistic detail help the verisimilitude. Caitlin’s father is far from perfect, and somewhat overwhelmed with the responsibility of managing a kid with special needs at the same time as personal tragedy. He occasionally has to leave his daughter in the lurch by leaving the room, or in a touch I liked, turning on Fox news for its superficial analysis of the school shooting.

Other important characters, like Caitlin’s wise counselor, Mrs. Brook, and her younger playground friend, Michael, are equally complex.

And Erskine adds in a nice little literary fillip. As you might guess from the title, her book contains some allusions to Harper Lee’s classic.

Is it all too much for a middle school reader? I say let the middle school reader decide for himself. Some kids, quite naturally, have questions about arbitrary violence, mortality, and their more unusual peers, and might be looking for a novel that addresses these issues that they can easily read.

With the caveat of slightly-too-cutesy presentation and possibly-too-weighty subject matter for all readers, recommended for fourth graders on up.