Although mostly intended for parents, many teens will also find this to be a very enlightening, often optimistic work on a...
With about one percent of the population fitting somewhere on the autistic spectrum, accurate insight into this condition is welcome.
Muggleton, in his debut, is particularly well-suited to comment on Asperger syndrome, since he was diagnosed with it at age 15 and is studying to be a psychologist. In concise, logically arranged chapters, he provides a brief history of autistic spectrum disorders and then offers experience-based insight into a number of aspects of AS, including ritual behaviors, problems making friends and dealing with difficult social situations, increased sensitivity to sensory input, bullying, dealing with changes in normal routine, etc. While many of his comments about schooling are Britain-centric, American audiences will, nonetheless, find this a useful work. The combination of personal experience and helpful, research-based suggestions is especially welcome. Particularly poignant and thought provoking is his description of his grade-school ritual of pacing athletic-field marking lines, with his parka zipped up and hood raised—in all weather—just to find relief from stressful recess problems and bullying, a behavior that made good sense to him given the situation but must have seemed highly dysfunctional to anyone watching.
Although mostly intended for parents, many teens will also find this to be a very enlightening, often optimistic work on a challenging topic. (foreword by Tony Atwood, not seen) (Nonfiction. 12 & up)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-84905-022-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
Percy Jackson & Co. have aroused an interest in Classical (Greek and Roman) mythology, making this collection especially timely. In this marvelous re-creation of myth from Ovid, the late Mitchell has rewritten them, as he says in the introduction, “to make them more like themselves.” The language is simple and contemporary, moving from rhyme to free verse to prose and back again. The words are marvelously apropos, describing Bacchus as “all belly and beard” or rhyming “transmogrifications” with “grasshopperations.” All of these stories explore mystery: the origins of flowers, mountains, lakes. Pygmalion, Persephone, Midas and Arachne all appear here. The gods, being lusty and capricious sorts, are allowed the freedom of their appetites. Lee, famed illustrator of Middle Earth, makes men and women, gods and beasts, sea, sky and leaf shimmer on the page. The last image is of a broken helmet and columned ruin next to an open book nestled in a profusion of wildflowers, elegantly echoing (Echo is here, too) the closing lines, “my words will live / while people love them.” (dramatis personae, notes, pronunciation guide) (Mythology. 12 & up)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-84580-536-1
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The “ick” factor is high in this latest title in the Scientists in the Field series describing patient field work, rescue and conservation efforts to save bats. The survival of these valuable but poorly understood nocturnal mammals is threatened by habitat loss, human fears and a mysterious disease. An opening trip with a gas-masked bat expert wading through mounds of droppings in an ammonia-filled cave is followed by visits to a rehabilitator with bats in her barn, a caver who not only researches bats but builds gates to keep them safe in their breeding and winter habitats, a scientist who finds bats under bridges and supervises building bat shelters and finally a night mist-net expedition with a Ph.D. candidate. Though the striking cover shows zoo-dwelling vampire bats from Central or South America, the focus of the text is bat research in this country. Woven into particular researchers’ stories is an enormous amount of information about bat biology and behavior. Uhlman’s photographs are clearly identified in context and the backmatter supports further research. (Learn more, glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 12 & up)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 970-0-547-19956-6
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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