50% of all sales donated to
Autism Society of America



Volume 1 issue 1 coming fall '08 take a peek!!


Excerpt of poetry by author Douglas Wake

Dance

Her dancing form swings about me here
Falling away and drawing near
She pulls me forward, holding my hands

She balances and spins on her toes
Comes close enough for me to kiss her nose
As we lose our breath and finish our dance



Excerpt of floetry by author Nancy Leat

My Mentality

So across this rope my feet dance swiftly
Skimming barely as if with flight I’m gifted
Sunshine is my shield, my smile, my infamy
Ain’t no way, no how, this negativity will get to me



Excerpt of Rantry by author Maria Mendoza

Better than Me

“So you think you’re better than me?”


Echoes from her smoked stained glass
Image neared mirroring
Drinking from my flask


The past now distant, the pain still here


Am I better?

November 15 - 16, 2007

Cute story about a girl who has a brother with autism. She meets a boy in a wheelchair who doesn't speak. The story is about her friendship with the boy, with a girl who moves in next door, and her family.

An interesting insight into what it means to be autistic. My favorite parts are where he discusses learning language. It boggles the mind.

I'm quite impressed at what a "normal" life he's made for himself. Lots of autistic people I know are not capable of that.

This book was amazing. I couldn't put it down. Daniel's life is so fascinating.

1-25-07

Although the author seemed a bit self-important to me, parts of this book were very interesting. Other parts, especially about the evolution of behavior, seemed to be less scientifically based and more story-telling than anything else (as so much animal behavior stuff is). I'm not really interested in behavior enough to stay excited until the end of the book, but it was pretty readable. I think it would have been more interesting to me if I were more excited about livestock.

i'm not saying it's not good. i'm just saying i couldn't finish it. this autistic child behaved nothing like the autistic children i worked with in my caretaker days, but i've heard the exact opposite from other people with the same background. so who knows? just couldn't get into it.

Fifteen-year-old Christopher John Francis Boone is mathematically gifted and socially hopeless, raised in a working-class home by parents who can barely cope with their child's quirks. He takes everything that he sees (or is told) at face value, and is unable to sort out the strange behavior of his elders and peers.

Late one night, Christopher comes across his neighbor's poodle, Wellington, impaled on a garden fork. Wellington's owner finds him cradling her dead dog in his arms, and has him arrested. After spending a night in jail, Christopher resolves--against the objection of his father and neighbors--to discover just who has murdered Wellington. He is encouraged by Siobhan, a social worker at his school, to write a book about his investigations, and the result--quirkily illustrated, with each chapter given its own prime number--is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

I actually thought this novel was just ok, it was a good read but I felt it was a little slow at times.

"And it means that sometimes things are so complicated that it is impossible to predict what they are going to do next, but they are only obeying really simple rules. And it means that sometimes a whole population of frogs, or worms, or people, can die for no reason whatsoever, just because that is the way the numbers work."

A really simple novel, yet surprisingly touching and brilliantly written. I cannot comment on how accurate a description of autism it is, but I loved that the main character, Christopher, makes life and existence so logical and simple. It's hard to argue with his reasonings!

Should be on everyone's TO READ list!

Haddon's mystery novel about an autistic teen who attempts to solve the mystery of a dead neighbor's dog funny and genuine. An original voice imbued with emotion and honesty. As someone with a brother who was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome (the type of autism Haddon's character has) at an early age, the book hit home in more ways than one.

The ingredients of a family nightmare are turned into comedy in this would-be detective story. It is told from the point-of-view of an autistic 15 year old & his take on the people who surround him & the events of his daily life as he tries to solve a mystery & uncovers the unexpected.

With the subject matter: animal cruelty, autism, unfaithfulness, parental alienation, teen angst and more ....this story could have been exploitive, depressing, and troubling. Instead, I found it warm, funny, instructive, and very touching. Well done!

Darkly funny and surprisingly moving book. Our unlikely narrator is Christopher, a boy with Asperger's, a form of autism. This book is a credible mystery story that can stand up proud; but as much as anything, it was an exercise in seeing the world through the eyes of a boy who's brain works so differently than yours or mine. Haddon never cheats with the 1st-person narrative, and so there's this deliciously frustrating sense that if we were just there in person, we would be able to look around the corner and recognize what Christopher is incapable of recognizing. We could see what was coming and somehow protect Christopher from it. But Christopher cannot bend his mind this way, and so we are trapped in the back seat with him at the wheel. This allows the story to surprise us at every twist and turn, and break our hearts a little along the way.

Okay, so this book is a good example of why I tend not to read popular books.

Yes, writing from the viewpoint of an autistic child was interesting - for about the first 30 pages. After that it just felt like a children's book. The story itself is not very powerful, it's really the writing style. I think the same effect of "Oh, wow, that's how autistic people see the world?" could have been accomplished in a short story. Maybe that sounds callous, but I really don't see the need for the entire book.