What do readers think of Mockingbird Summer by Lynda Rutledge? Write your own review.

I read this in one sitting: Then read it again! I love a book that makes me sob (good tears) through the end.

Thanks to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for a digital advance reader's copy. All comments and opinions are my own.

I loved this! Deserves more than 5 stars! A heartwarming, historical, coming-of-age story that takes place during a time of massive cultural upheaval, this remarkable novel explores the power of friendship, hope, and progress.

The novel begins with this paragraph, “In 1964, a small miracle of a summer happened in Kate “Corky” Corcoran’s tiny, segregated town because of a softball game, a pastor feud, a drugstore sit-in, and a girl named America who Corky saw run as fast as Olympic champion Wilma Rudolph, the fastest woman in the world.”

After reading that sentence, I couldn’t put this book down. It’s well-written, with realistic characters, authentic dialogue, and edge-of-your-seat plotting. The book smoothly shifts from various characters’ points of view, including a dog, as well as an omniscient narrator. The suspenseful foreshadowing kept me turning the pages in anticipation. Talented author Lynda Rutledge (“West With Giraffes”) creatively takes the larger 1964 issues of racism and the Civil Rights Movement, women’s rights, the Cold War, Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy assassination, Viet Nam war, Martin Luther King Jr., and makes them personal by telling the story from the perspective of naïve 13-year-old Corky.

Rutledge explains how “The moral of this novel, if it has one, is about the absolute miracle of friendship and also about the miraculous ability that books and sports possess to draw those new worlds together.” Of course the book she is referring to is “To Kill A Mockingbird” and the sport is girls’ softball. If you want to read similar heartwarming 5-star coming-of-age novels of small-town drama mixed with poignant humor after finishing this one, I highly recommend “The All-American” by Susie Finkbeiner, “The Incredible Winston Browne” and “Kinfolk,” both by Sean Dietrich.

This would be great for book clubs and is one I’ll be telling everyone to read. Don’t miss this feel-good novel!

I loved this book. It is a great story about a baseball-playing brother and his sister, and their discovery of a gifted runner in their midsts. A potential great addition to their team but for the fact that she goes to a different church, lives in a different part of town, and is of a different race . . . . all this in the Deep South, during the early 60's. The author develops the story through her teenage characters. She makes it easy for the reader to remember their own teenage years, and how we slowly discovered truths that seemed to us to be totally wrong.

I loved this book, and didn't want to put it down. At 286 pages, it is a fast read, and ends well. I recommend it for personal reading as well as book club discussions.

This is one of those books that I couldn't put down. One of the best things about this book was that it was told through the voice of a young girl who lives in a small town.
The frustration of the mother who wanted to have a job, the older brother and his issues, and the two young girls, one a naive white girl and a girl from Haiti, and how their lives interact.

It was an accurate description of life in a small southern town. I want to ask the author, what happened to America when she left? What is her story into adulthood? This book will be on the list of my book group to read and discuss. I would give it a "must-read."

I like this book very much.

I haven't read a better coming-of-age tale in a long time than this one! It centers on the tomboyish Corky and her brother Mack as they navigate their adolescent years in the 1960s amid racial tensions. forming their own connections and friendships.
The small Texas town came to life in every little detail, and the story and scene setting were superb throughout the entire novel. The writing in this book was so exquisite that I found it impossible to put it down.

I am grateful to Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for providing a digital advance reader's copy. All thoughts and remarks are all fantastic.

This was fantastic! This amazing book examines the strength of friendship, optimism, and progress in a historical coming-of-age tale set amid a period of intense cultural upheaval.

Mockingbird Summer is a Civil Rights and Women’s Rights novel set in Texas, 1964. Star of the book is a thirteen-year-old girl named Kathryn Corcoran, also known as Katie or Corky. She becomes friends with America Willcox, the teenage daughter of Corky’s family housekeeper. Corky’s mother wants to take a part-time job in the local library against the wishes of her husband. Corky wants America to become a member of her softball team against the wishes of many residents in their fictional segregated town, High Cotton, Texas.

I particularly enjoyed the concept of drug store sit-ins that occurred in the story, because I learned very little about them in my high school History classes. I especially disliked the over abundance of Corky’s thoughts throughout the book. The other characters were important to the story, both good and bad, but their thoughts were minor compared to Corky’s. I would recommend this novel for young adult readers, mainly high school age, and it could make a debatable choice for book clubs.

I started to read this book and it didn't grab me right away so I put it down. I then picked it up again and got half way through and it still didn't grab me. The subject matter has been told in other stories that I feel were better written. This one I was able to put down and not worry about the ending.