Second Book Club Meeting

The next ten chapters of Mockingbird focus primarily on Caitlin's developing friendship with Michael and her desire for closure with her brother's death.  Mrs. Brooks decided that to help Caitlin work on her social skills and making friends she would go to recess with the younger kids, which initially Caitlin does not like the idea of.  However, Caitlin saw a boy at recess that had a hat that reminded her of her brother and went to talk to him, learning that his name was Michael.  Realizing he looked sad she asks him what is wrong and shares her gummy worms with him and he told her he missed his mom, who had also died.  Michael asked her if she was the, "wierdo whose brother died," and they bonded over their losses.  Eventually Caitlin develops a relationship with Michael and looks forward to seeing him at recess, which is a big step for her because he is her first friend. Another significant part of this section of the book was Caitlin's search for closure.  After hearing the word closure on a news story about the shooting that resulted in her brother's death, she looked it up in the dictionary and decided to focus on finding closure for herself and her father.  Caitlin also talked a lot about her relationship with her brother who served as her protector and her teacher.  He helped her with a lot of the things that she struggled with, like social cues and what to do/not to do in certain situations.  She viewed him as a role model and felt that he understood her better than anyone else. Their relationship reminded me a lot of the relationship that I have with my sister because she looks out for me in a similar way. 
  
After reading chapters 11-20 our group met in person again after class.  We discussed Caitlin's relationship with Michael and how they help each other in grieving and Michael helps her develop social skills.  We talked about when Caitlin told her classmate that her face looked ugly after she fell and offended her even though she thought she was doing the right thing by being honest and how honesty was another characteristic of Asperger's. We ended our meeting by deciding to read the next ten chapters for our next discussion.