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| Perma-Bound Edition ©2014 | -- |
| Paperback ©2014 | -- |
Lee, Harper. To kill a mockingbird. Juvenile fiction.
Lee, Harper. To kill a mockingbird. Fiction.
Books and reading. Fiction.
Friendship. Fiction.
Literary terrorists hit Connecticut, and things go awry for a trio of well-meaning book addicts. "What if we could make everybody read To Kill a Mockingbird this summer?" Lucy asks her friends Elena and Michael. They've received summer reading lists on the last day of eighth grade, and their favorite, To Kill a Mockingbird, is one of their choices. It's such a great book, though, that everyone should read it, so they go about scheming to make that happen. Operating on the principle of supply and demand, they figure if they make the novel scarce, students will flock to libraries and bookstores in search of it. Naming their conspiracy "I Kill the Mockingbird," they set out to hide copies of the Harper Lee classic, purposely misshelving it in bookstores and libraries in town and, eventually, throughout the state. They create a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr, and their plot quickly goes out of control, encouraging copycats around the country. Soon, their plan to promote reading begins to seem like censorship, a plot by publishers or a big practical joke. Acampora's tale of three book-loving protagonists out to spread the love celebrates books and readers, and it fizzes in Lucy's lively first-person narration. The spot-on dialogue combines with the irresistible appeal of young teenagers enthusiastically pursuing bad ideas for a fast, page-flipping read. It'll make readers look at reading and activism in a whole new light. (Fiction. 10-14)
Voice of Youth AdvocatesLucy and her two best friends, Elena and Michael, have just graduated eighth grade. As the three face the summer before high school, they contemplate the tricky changes that are happening all around themLucy's mom's recent victory over cancer; the death of their beloved English teacher, Fat Bob; and Michael and Lucy's budding romancealongside more pragmatic concerns, like their assigned summer reading. As the three friends debate the merits of one of their summer reading options, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, they hatch a plan to honor Fat Bob. The three begin to creatively redistribute every copy of To Kill a Mockingbird in every bookstore within a fifty-mile radius to other sections of the bookstore, like Taxidermy and Car Maintenance, as well as use social media to invent a conspiracy about and drive up interest in Fat Bob's favorite book. The plan works, though the three friends must finally come cleanthey discover that booksellers consider the redistribution of books as shrinkagebut not before people from places far away from their Connecticut town start talking about, reading, and even performing To Kill a Mockingbird.Fans of Janet Tashjian's The Gospel According to Larry series will enjoy this look at how the power of creativity and the internet can cause a cultural moment, and how even the best laid plans can take on a life of their own. Like authors of books, the three must consider how their ikillamockingbird project means different things to different people. Acampora's novel is for lovers of literature, especially how the classics work in the current moment.Jennifer M. Miskec.
Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)In this quick, witty novel, narrator Lucy and her bibliophile best friends Elena and Michael embark on a campaign of literary rebellion in an attempt to compel fellow students to read
Gr 5-8 The past year had been an emotional one for 13-year-old Lucy: her favorite English teacher collapsed and died next to her in line at the school cafeteria, and her mother almost died from cancer and is slowly recovering. Through it all, Lucy's friends Elena and Michael have stood by her. Now it's time for summer break and the new English teacher hands out a list of required summer reading. Lucy's favorite, To Kill a Mockingbird , is on the list. Lucy wants everyone to read this great book, and hatches a plan with her friends that will "go viral" in a way far beyond what she could imagine. Meanwhile, Lucy tries not to worry about her motherit's hard for the teen to believe that her mother, who was once told she had only a few weeks to live, is actually well. Lucy's also coming to the realization that Michael may be more than a friend, and wonders if she's ready for all the challenges that high school will bring. Funny, poignant, and quirky, I Kill the Mockingbird will appeal to today's middle schoolers who are tech-savvy, literate, and idealistic. Acampora has developed likable characters that readers will relate to; they will cheer as Lucy, Elena, and Michael work together and amaze even themselves with their courage and conviction. Kathy Kirchoefer, Henderson County Public Library, NC
ALA BooklistIt really begins with the death of everybody's favorite eighth-grade English teacher, Mr. Nowak. Affectionately dubbed Fat Bob because he was as wide as he was tall (and he was very tall), the teacher had assigned only one book as summer reading the previous year, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Now, best friends Lucy, Elena, and Michael vow to find a way to memorialize Fat Bob by insuring that everybody will want to read the modern classic. Their plan: make the book desirable by making it scarce. Their strategy: visit every library and bookstore in the area and hide all copies of the book, then publicize their campaign with posters and a website proclaiming, I Kill the Mockingbird. Will the kids succeed? Will Lucy and Michael's friendship blossom into something more? Will Lucy's mom, whose cancer is in remission, ever learn to eat healthfully? Acampora's well-written, resolutely cheerful offering celebrates books, reading, and life, and that is surely enough to satisfy the most jaded reader.
Horn BookIn honor of her favorite (deceased) teacher, Lucy starts a guerilla campaign "to turn To Kill a Mockingbird into forbidden fruit." She creatively re-shelves copies in bookstores and libraries, making them nearly impossible to find and thus desirable; social media helps the campaign to take on a life of its own. Fans of the Harper Lee classic--and book nerds everywhere--should flock to this tribute.
Kirkus Reviews
Voice of Youth Advocates
Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
School Library Journal
ALA Booklist
Horn Book
The Queen of England Is in Our Bathroom
My mother’s wheelchair does not fit through the bathroom door, and I don’t know what to do about it. I pull the chair back an inch and then roll it into the door frame again. The clunk makes Mom sit up straight. “You have got to be kidding me,” she says.
Actually, these are not her exact words. I am not allowed to repeat her exact words.
“Don’t worry,” says Dad, who stands inside the bathroom, ready to give Mom a hand. “We’ll figure something out.”
This is the first time my mother has been home from the West Glover Hospital in over a month. They only let her leave because she promised to stay off her feet for at least forty-eight hours. I put my hand on Mom’s shoulder. “What if we turn it around and back it in?”
“Lucy,” Mom says to me, “width is not a function of vector.”
Mom studied math in college. She’s a professional photographer now, but she’s always finding ways to work things like vectors and differentials and Hilbert curves into conversation. I rarely know what she’s talking about.
“We don’t have vectors in our math,” Elena calls from the kitchen.
“We’ll get to them in high school,” says Michael, who is in the kitchen, too.
Michael Buskirk and Elena Vallejo are my best friends. They were both on the front lawn waiting to greet Mom when we got back from the hospital. The three of us met back in kindergarten when Elena was a black-haired bulldozer in a pink dress and a leg brace, and Michael was a quiet skinny boy in short pants and Space Invader T-shirts. Now we are all in the eighth grade at St. Brigid’s Catholic School, where my dad is our principal.
Elena sighs. “Vectors and high school,” she says. “I can’t wait.”
Elena is certain that high school is going to swallow us up, spit us out, and crush us like bugs. It’s because she still looks like a little doll that Santa Claus would leave beneath a Christmas tree. I resemble one of those gawky stuffed giraffes that nobody ever wins at the carnival, but Michael is over six feet tall. He’s strong and easygoing with dark hair and brown eyes that match the color of his skin. I think he’s the best-looking boy in our school. He lives just across the street from me, so I see him enough to know that I’m right.
“Elena,” Dad shouts from the bathroom. “Please stop worrying about high school. It’s months away, and it’s going to be fine.”
“How do you know?” she yells back at him.
“It’s one of the things they teach you in principal school,” he tells her.
“He’s got you there,” Michael says to Elena.
“In the meantime,” says Mom, “I still really have to pee.” A few wisps of thin, brown hair have escaped the paisley scarf wrapped around her head. Dark circles beneath her eyes make it look like she’s been punched in the face. Cancer will do that to you.
Dad examines the doorway leading into the bathroom. “We’ll get another inch of clearance if I take the door off the frame.” At school, I’ve seen him unclog toilets, mop up vomit, set a broken bone, and rescue a wide variety of rodents, snakes, amphibians, and other classroom pets without even loosening his tie. Popping a door off its hinges is not going to be a problem.
Michael hops off the kitchen counter. “I’ll get the toolbox.”
“There’s a screwdriver in the junk drawer,” says Elena.
The two of them know where everything is. They’ve pretty much grown up in our house, and sometimes we’re more like family than friends. I love having Elena as a sister, but lately I’m thinking it might be nice if Michael were a little less brotherly and a little more friendly. That’s another door I don’t know how to get through.
“How about we just do this?” says Mom. Without waiting for an answer, she places both hands on the wheelchair’s armrests and pushes herself into a standing position.
“Whoa!” I say.
Dad quickly reaches an arm around Mom’s waist then takes her hand. “May I have this dance?” he asks.
Mom takes a breath. “Lead me to the toilet first.”
My parents say it’s the everyday moments—folding laundry, washing dishes, pouring each other a cup of coffee—that make their marriage a good one. I know they’re right, but I’m hoping for something a little more romantic than a stroll into the bathroom one day.
With Dad’s help, Mom takes a small step forward. “Are you okay?” I ask her.
Mom takes another step then places a free hand on the sand dollars and sea fans and junonias that decorate our bathroom wallpaper. “I’m happy to be home.”
“And cancer free,” says Dad.
She nods. “That too.”
A year ago, the doctors explained that Mom’s disease—something with a name that sounded like angie-mumbo-jumbo-plastic-lycanthrope—was rare, aggressive, and generally fatal. In other words, she had a roughly zero chance to live. Even I understood that math. A week ago, those same doctors announced that she was cured. “How is that possible?” I asked.
The doctors shrugged. Sometimes, they told Dad and me, it just happens. Afterward, one of Mom’s nurses found us in the hospital corridor. “God heard your prayers,” she said. “That’s how it happened.”
It’s true that we’d been doing a lot of praying, but until now it didn’t seem like anybody was really listening. “I don’t know about that,” I said.
“God heard you,” the nurse said again. “It’s a miracle.” And then she burst into tears.
Neither Dad nor I backed away. I think it’s because we both spend our days in Catholic school. That’s where you learn that faithful people can be a little insane sometimes. On the other hand, is it more sensible to accept that everything is random or is it better to believe that God can step in occasionally and repair your T cells? I don’t know.
Either way, Mom is on her feet now. She’s moving forward with Dad on her arm as if they are about to meet the Queen of England in our bathroom. Mom even offers dainty royal wrist waves as she exits the hallway. This should be funny, but I don’t laugh. I suppose this is the result of even more Catholic school stuff filling up my head. We’re taught that sometimes the world is a puzzle waiting for us to solve it. Other times it’s a mystery to appreciate and accept. Right now I think my family, my friends—maybe even my whole life—are a whole lot of both.
Text copyright © 2014 by Paul Acampora
Excerpted from I Kill the Mockingbird by Paul Acampora
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
When Lucy, Elena, and Michael receive their summer reading list, they are excited to see To Kill A Mockingbird included. But not everyone in their class shares the same enthusiasm. So they hatch a plot to get the entire town talking about the well-known Harper Lee classic. They plan controversial ways to get people to read the book, including re-shelving copies of the book in bookstores so that people think they are missing and starting a website committed to "destroying the mockingbird." Their efforts are successful when all of the hullabaloo starts to direct more people to the book. But soon, their exploits start to spin out of control and they unwittingly start a mini revolution in the name of books. I Kill the Mockingbird by Paul Acampora is a middle grade novel perfect for fans of To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman. This title has Common Core connections. "The banter among the three whip-smart friends would make John Green proud. . . . You won't have to hide any copies of this to create demand." -- The Bulletin "Fans of Janet Tashjian's The Gospel According to Larry series will enjoy this look at how the power of creativity and the internet can cause a cultural movement. . . . Acampora's novel is for lovers of literature, especially how the classics work in the current moment." -- VOYA