Review of "Mockingbird" by Kathryn Erskine

             "Mockingbird" by Kathryn Erskine is about an eleven year old girl named Caitlyn, who has aspergers. This is not the only problem she has to face, though, her mother died when she was three and her brother was killed in a school shooting. Throughout the book, she tries to find Closure as well as make friends.
             I assumed that most people who read this book wanted to know if anyone with aspergers found the book an accurate representation. I certainly did. While reading this book, I felt a connection that I knew only a few readers would also feel. Caitlyn was me as a fifth grader. At that time, I remember stuffed-animaling (I just called it "making things blurry") and playing with candy (Easter M&Ms to be exact. They looked like animals, so I would pretend they were and set them up in a barn.) and not looking people in the eye. I also never colored my pictures, but it was because I couldn't color inside the lines. I absolutely hated gym class (still do, but not that strongly) and recess was fun but too loud. And I was also glad that the kid with autism (which is not the same as aspergers) was in a different classroom because I always heard her screaming across the room. I don't think anyone besides my mom knew I had aspergers, or understood it. They just thought I was weird.
           I also recalled some sad memories of my own while reading one of the ending chapters, in which Caitlyn deals with people constantly teasing her and she doesn't understand it. The book explores my childhood to the point that I felt as though, instead of making up a character, Kathryn Erksine followed me around when I was in fifth grade. I loved that the book was able to hanfle three subjects (aspergers, school-shooting, dead family member) however, I didn't like the ending nor the author talking mostly about the school-shooting topic in the end. But I still recommend this book to those who have not read it.
           By the way, I never found my aspergers to be a "problem" or "disability." Because of it, I was never interested in popularity or status, and I have my career as an artist and writer ahead of me. The only thing that I don't like about it is that it took me so long to understand people, but I've mostly Got It by now. :)

The Day the Teachers Wore Apple Stickers -A True Story!

This is a story that really happened! My history teacher told the whole class:

Apparently, on Tuesday, March 1st, the teachers were supposed to wear red in honor of the teachers in some other state (sorry! I forgot the reason why, but the rest of the story will make sense!) Most of the teachers, since this was a new thing to do, forgot to wear red to school. Including my science teacher, who went around the school Monday reminding the teachers to wear red!

What were the teachers supposed to do? Well, my social studies teacher (the one who was telling us the story) found some red apple stickers in her desk and gave them to the teachers who forgot to wear red. But, as I mentioned before, A LOT of teachers forgot to wear red that day. As a result, more teachers were wearing red apple stickers than not. So, one of the math teachers found some green apple stickers in her desk, and all the teachers who remembered to wear red Tuesday wore the green apple stickers. Some of them even had worms in them (not real worms! I mean that the cartoon apple had the worm in it!)

And that was the day every teacher in my middle school wore cartoon apple stickers on their shirts. Feel free to share this story with your friends or something. But this is something that really happened to me.