Mockingbird Book Club Meeting 2

For the book club meeting set for October 8th, the group planned to read up to chapter 20 of Mockingbird. I told everyone that it has been difficult for me to stop reading this book because it is really interesting to me. I often find myself wanting to keep going to the next chapter. We began by talking about how the main character, Caitlin, becomes fixated on finding closure with what happened to her brother, even though she does not really know what closure means. She talks to her counselor at school about her attempts to find closure, but does not seem to grasp the idea that it takes time and patience to reach that point.

Someone in the group stated she is amazed that Caitlin, in hopes to meet a new friend at recess, ends up meeting a boy who’s mother was also killed in the school shooting. Although it took a while for her to make this connection, Michael and Caitlin end up helping one another and keeping each other company during recess. When it came time to be assigned “reading buddies”, Caitlin showed a good amount of jealousy that Josh was able to work with Michael instead of her. This natural human emotion is something that has not been displayed by Caitlin until now, which is eye opening for us. We saw this as improvement with relationships and also a good lesson for Caitlin to experience. She can look back at this and remember how it felt while trying to read other people’s emotions in the future.

I brought up that Caitlin is beginning to have some empathy for her father, especially after it is mentioned to her that it upsets him when she talks about Devon as if he is still alive. To try to make her dad feel better, she begins to refer to Devon as “Devon-who-is-dead”, which ends up not helping her father as much as she hoped. When her father asks her what she wants to do for her birthday, Caitlin replies that she wants to go to the mall with Devon. Her dad reminded her that that is not possible and Caitlin responds by saying that it is what she wants to do, even though she knows she can’t do it. In the book club, we discusses that it seems the father is so caught up in his own emotions, that he does not put much effort in trying to ask questions and use words in a way that Caitlin will understand and not take literally. We can imagine that it is difficult to experience; however, we do not understand why he wouldn’t just ask the question in attempt to get the type of answer that he was looking for.

A member of the group mentioned the connection that Caitlin makes to the book To Kill a Mockingbird and how Devon used to call her “Scout”, which was one of the character’s names. Remembering that nickname leads Caitlin to finally feel that it is time to go into Devon’s room like she used to very often in the past. Upon opening the door and reminiscing memories of her brother, Caitlin finds a list that Devon wrote. She realizes that this list is something that her brother made that includes several things that he wanted to teach Caitlin, or what Devon called her, Scout. Coming across this list appears to mean the world to Caitlin and leads her to feel the need to complete her brother’s Eagle Scout project in hopes to find closure. This was touching to the entire group and led us to believe that it will help Caitlin to grow and overcome this difficult time. The group discussion ended with this thought and a plan to read up to chapter 30 for the next meeting. We all seem to enjoy discussing this book and are looking forward to seeing what happens next.