When Lucy, Michael and their friend Elena are talking about how people don’t read as much as they used to, they come up with a plan to make Lucy’s favorite novel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, red hot. The three of them reason that if they make it seem like the book is unavailable, people will want to read it. What they don’t figure in is how a little publicity combined with the Internet can quickly turn into a situation spiraling out of control.

I Kill the Mockingbird by Paul Acampora is a tribute to readers everywhere. Lucy has plenty to worry about over the summer between 8th and 9th grade, including a mother who is recovering from cancer and the fact that she may be feeling like more than a friend to Michael. The plan she and her friends come up with to create buzz around Lucy’s favorite book starts out simply before it goes viral. By the time the three of them figure out how to end it, they have learned a lot about the value of honesty, relationships, and taking chances.

This is a great book for mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 9 to 12 to read. It delves into issues of friendship, teens’ relationships with their parents and other adults in authority, religious faith, and the things we learn from reading books. I highly recommend it.

I checked out a copy of this book from my local library.