A must-read for those with nonverbal autism, their caregivers, and anyone wishing to learn more about the condition.
A 13-year-old boy with nonverbal autism who can’t follow basic directions learns how to communicate, upending his life.
Kedar (Ido in Autismland, 2012) is an autism advocate who communicates and writes by typing on an iPad or keyboard and pointing to letters on a board. This book is one of the few novels by an author with nonverbal autism. The tale’s teenage protagonist, Anthony, lives in two worlds: the “Autismland” of his mind, where he can escape for a sensory high afforded him because of his condition, and the realm where everyone else resides—full of baby talk and repetitive drills that specialists employ for his so-called therapy. When Anthony reaches adolescence, a family friend tells his mom about a woman who claims to teach autistic kids to communicate by typing. Anthony’s parents are skeptical, but his older brother, Mark, who has always suspected that his sibling is more intelligent than he gets credit for, insists they give him a letter board. Even though the book’s title contrasts the world of autism to the neurotypical one, this story deftly explores two other realms, offering rich details: Anthony’s frustrating existence before he can communicate and his intriguing life after he gets the letter board. His life pre-board is full of 40 hours of tedious behavioral analysis and therapy every week. His condition causes him to “stim,” or self-stimulate utilizing a repetitive behavior like hand-flapping. Once he starts using the board to express himself, he can order from a menu, write in full sentences, and even make jokes at the expense of his therapists, who continue to doubt his abilities. The engrossing and highly informative tale is smoothly told in the third person from Anthony’s point of view except for a few chapters that switch abruptly. For example, the story shifts to the perspective of Natasha, one of his supervisors, in “Skeptical,” despite Anthony’s not being physically present during this part of the novel.
A must-read for those with nonverbal autism, their caregivers, and anyone wishing to learn more about the condition.Pub Date: July 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-73229-150-8
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Double Buck Publishing, LLC
Review Posted Online: June 12, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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