Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine

Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine

The young adult novel Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine details the narrator's coming-of-age after suffering several traumatic experiences. The first experience is the death of Caitlin's brother Devon during a school shooting. As a young woman with Asperger's syndrome, Caitlin has few natural coping mechanisms to deal with emotional trauma. Her only refuge is the special gift of her art and the help of her counselor at school. Rather than feeling 'lucky' to have so many relatives and friends to comfort her (as she is told) Caitlin feels over-stimulated by the emotional response and the noise and the change in her routine. She cannot understand why her father won't order pizza on Thursday nights, as they used to when Devon was alive. Catlin has trouble interpreting even simply emotions such as smiles and frowns, much less complex emotions such as her father's response to grief.

A second traumatic aspect of Caitlin's life is the frustrations of having to deal with her peers. Caitlin would prefer to work alone, given her difficulties interpreting the social cues of other children. One of the students named Josh singles her out as the target of his attacks. Caitlin is completely unable to defend herself against Josh. When Josh sneers at her she tells him it is not nice to smile at someone when you are being nasty. As frustrating as Caitlin's incomprehension of her peers may be, she is also incapable of malice. She does not understand why people enjoy making fun of other people. It takes Josh a long time to encourage her to fire back a response in anger like a 'normal' girl or for her to even understand that people are taunting her.

As much as the school shooting takes away from Caitlin and her father, it also oddly provides her with a source of connection with her fellow students. All of them share a common experience of horror. Even the non-disabled students are startled at loud noises and anything that reminds them of the shooting. Everyone has experienced a tragedy, not just Caitlin, and everyone requires grief counseling to attempt to regain some sense of normalcy. Caitlin eventually befriends a little boy named Michael who lost his mother in the school shooting. The common bond of grief unites them in a manner that transcends age, gender, and autism.

This normalcy or 'closure' that Caitlin and her father seek is achieved when they complete Devon's Eagle Scout chest, the project he was working on at the time of his death. At the beginning of the book, Caitlin understands 'closure' in a very literal sense of the word. Gradually, as the narrative progresses, she begins to understand closure in a deeper fashion, as something emotional and internal in nature. The book shows how, even out of a great evil like a school shooting, there is some good to be found. Devon was the person in Caitlin's life who always urged her to behave in a more normal fashion, but as a result of going through the process of grieving his death, Devon learns to become more in touch with her emotions and gains her first friends.