The Ride Together


Book Description

We looked like a cup of human fruit cocktail dumped onto the top of the house, each piece different but all out of the same can. So begins a book unlike any other, half comics and half text, about a family that lives with autism -- and the strange life that is ordinary to them. The oldest son, David, recites Superman episodes as he walks around the living room. A late-night family poker game spirals into a fog-driven duel. A thug from an old black-and-white rerun crawls out of the television. A housekeeper transforms into an avenging angel. A broken plate signals a terrible change in the family that none of them can prevent...until it's too late. This groundbreaking work was excerpted in The New York Times for its ability to honestly, eloquently, and respectfully set forth what life is like with autism in the family. What sets The Ride Together apart is its combination of imagination and realism -- its vision of a family's inner world -- with David at the center.




Being the Other One


Book Description

When there's a disabled child in the family, how are normally developing siblings affected? According to Kate Strohm, a counselor and health educator, siblings of the disabled face particular emotional challenges that are often overlooked. Able siblings commonly struggle with feelings of isolation, grief, anger, and anxiety—and these and other emotional issues can have lifelong effects. Being the Other One is based on the author's own experience (as a sibling of a sister with cerebral palsy) and on extensive interviews she conducted with siblings of all ages. In clear and compassionate terms, Strohm explores the often secret feelings of siblings and offers valuable strategies for coping with the challenges they face. Being the Other One reveals the difficulties faced by siblings at all stages of life, from early childhood through adulthood, when siblings must often assume responsibility for the care of their disabled brothers and sisters. Though the book looks honestly at the many challenges that siblings face, it is full of encouragement and practical strategies. Strohm emphasizes that when siblings are able to clearly identify and openly express their feelings and concerns—and when parents and health professionals offer the needed support—siblings can thrive. This book includes writing exercises for personal exploration and a substantial resources section listing helpful books, organizations, and websites.




How to Be a Sister: A Love Story with a Twist of Autism


Book Description

The first book by acclaimed author Eileen Garvin—her deeply felt, impeccably written memoir, How to Be a Sister will speak to siblings, parents, friends, and teachers of people with autism—and to anyone who sometimes struggles to connect with someone difficult or different. Eileen Garvin’s older sister, Margaret, was diagnosed with severe autism at age three. Growing up alongside Margaret wasn’t easy: Eileen often found herself in situations that were simultaneously awkward, hilarious, and heartbreaking. For example, losing a blue plastic hairbrush could leave Margaret inconsolable for hours, and a quiet Sunday Mass might provoke an outburst of laughter, swearing, or dancing. How to Be a Sister begins when Eileen, after several years in New Mexico, has just moved back to the Pacific Northwest, where she grew up. Being 1,600 miles away had allowed Eileen to avoid the question that has dogged her since birth: What is she going to do about Margaret? Now, Eileen must grapple with this question once again as she tentatively tries to reconnect with Margaret. How can she have a relationship with someone who can’t drive, send email, or telephone? What role will Eileen play in Margaret’s life as their parents age, and after they die? Will she remain in Margaret’s life, or walk away? A deeply felt, impeccably written memoir, How to Be a Sister will speak to siblings, parents, friends, and teachers of people with autism—and to anyone who sometimes struggles to connect with someone difficult or different.




Twin


Book Description

A heartbreaking yet deeply hopeful memoir about life as a twin in the face of autism. When Allen Shawn and his twin sister, Mary, were two, Mary began exhibiting signs of what would be diagnosed many years later as autism. Understanding Mary and making her life a happy one appeared to be impossible for the Shawns. At the age of eight, with almost no warning, her parents sent Mary to a residential treatment center. She never lived at home again. Fifty years later, as he probed the sources of his anxieties in Wish I Could Be There, Shawn realized that his fate was inextricably linked to his sister's, and that their natures were far from being different. Twin highlights the difficulties American families coping with autism faced in the 1950s. Shawn also examines the secrets and family dramas as his father, William, became editor of The New Yorker. Twin reconstructs a parallel narrative for the two siblings, who experienced such divergent fates yet shared talents and proclivities. Wrenching, honest, understated, and poetic, Twin is at heart about the mystery of being inextricably bonded to someone who can never be truly understood.




Riding the Bus with My Sister


Book Description

A “heartwarming, life-affirming” memoir of a relationship with an intellectually disabled sibling: “Read this book. It might just change your life” (Boston Herald). Beth is a spirited woman with an intellectual disability who lives intensely and often joyfully, and spends most of her days riding the buses in Pennsylvania. The drivers, a lively group, are her mentors; her fellow passengers, her community—though some display less patience or kindness than others. Her sister, Rachel, a teacher and writer, camouflages her emotional isolation by leading a hyperbusy life. But one day, Beth asks Rachel to accompany her on public transportation for an entire year—and Rachel accepts. This wise, funny, deeply affecting book is the chronicle of that remarkable time, as Rachel learns how to live in the moment, how to pay attention to what really matters, how to change, how to love—and how to slow down and enjoy the ride. Weaving in anecdotes and memories of terrifying maternal abandonment, fierce sisterly loyalty, and astonishing forgiveness, Rachel Simon brings to light a world that is almost invisible to many people, finds unlikely heroes in everyday life, and, without sentimentality, wrestles with her own limitations and portrays Beth as the endearing, feisty, independent person she is. “With tenderness and fury, heartbreak and acceptance . . . Simon comes to the inescapable conclusion that we are all riders on the bus, and on the bus we are all the same.” —Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean




Same But Different: Teen Life on the Autism Express


Book Description

Talk show host Holly Robinson Peete pairs with her twins in this narrative about the challenges and triumphs of being a teen who has autism and the effects on family, school, friends, and life. Being a teen is hard enough. But when you have autism--or when your brother or sister is struggling with the disorder--life can be challenging. It's one thing when you're a kid in grade school, and a playdate goes south due to autism in a family. Or when you're a little kid, and a vacation or holiday turns less-than-happy because of an autistic family member. But being a teen with autism can get pretty hairy--especially when you're up against dating, parties, sports, body changes, school, and other kids who just don't 'get' you. In this powerful book, teenagers Ryan Elizabeth Peete and her twin brother, Rodney, who has autism, share their up-close-and-personal experiences on what it means to be a teen living with autism. SAME BUT DIFFERENT, explores the funny, painful, and unexpected aspects of teen autism, while daring to address issues nobody talks about. SAME BUT DIFFERENT underscores tolerance, love, and the understanding that everybody's unique drumbeat is worth dancing to.




Look Me in the Eye


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “As sweet and funny and sad and true and heartfelt a memoir as one could find.” —from the foreword by Augusten Burroughs Ever since he was young, John Robison longed to connect with other people, but by the time he was a teenager, his odd habits—an inclination to blurt out non sequiturs, avoid eye contact, dismantle radios, and dig five-foot holes (and stick his younger brother, Augusten Burroughs, in them)—had earned him the label “social deviant.” It was not until he was forty that he was diagnosed with a form of autism called Asperger’s syndrome. That understanding transformed the way he saw himself—and the world. A born storyteller, Robison has written a moving, darkly funny memoir about a life that has taken him from developing exploding guitars for KISS to building a family of his own. It’s a strange, sly, indelible account—sometimes alien yet always deeply human.




Worlds of Autism


Book Description

Since first being identified as a distinct psychiatric disorder in 1943, autism has been steeped in contestation and controversy. Present-day skirmishes over the potential causes of autism, how or even if it should be treated, and the place of Asperger’s syndrome on the autism spectrum are the subjects of intense debate in the research community, in the media, and among those with autism and their families. Bringing together innovative work on autism by international scholars in the social sciences and humanities, Worlds of Autism boldly challenges the deficit narrative prevalent in both popular and scientific accounts of autism spectrum disorders, instead situating autism within an abilities framework that respects the complex personhood of individuals with autism. A major contribution to the emerging, interdisciplinary field of critical autism studies, this book is methodologically and conceptually broad. Its authors explore the philosophical questions raised by autism, such as how it complicates neurotypical understandings of personhood; grapple with the politics that inform autism research, treatment, and care; investigate the diagnosis of autism and the recognition of difference; and assess representations of autism and stories told by and about those with autism. From empathy, social circles, and Internet communities to biopolitics, genetics, and diagnoses, Worlds of Autism features a range of perspectives on autistic subjectivities and the politics of cognitive difference, confronting society’s assumptions about those with autism and the characterization of autism as a disability. Contributors: Dana Lee Baker, Washington State U; Beatrice Bonniau, Paris Descartes U; Charlotte Brownlow, U of Southern Queensland, Australia; Kristin Bumiller, Amherst College; Brigitte Chamak, Paris Descartes U; Kristina Chew, Saint Peter’s U, New Jersey; Patrick McDonagh, Concordia U, Montreal; Stuart Murray, U of Leeds; Majia Holmer Nadesan, Arizona State U; Christina Nicolaidis, Portland State U; Lindsay O'Dell, Open U, London; Francisco Ortega, State U of Rio de Janeiro; Mark Osteen, Loyola U, Maryland; Dawn Eddings Prince; Dora Raymaker; Sara Ryan, U of Oxford; Lila Walsh.




Educated


Book Description

#1 NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER • One of the most acclaimed books of our time: an unforgettable memoir about a young woman who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University “Extraordinary . . . an act of courage and self-invention.”—The New York Times NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW • ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR • BILL GATES’S HOLIDAY READING LIST • FINALIST: National Book Critics Circle’s Award In Autobiography and John Leonard Prize For Best First Book • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award • Los Angeles Times Book Prize Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home. “Beautiful and propulsive . . . Despite the singularity of [Westover’s] childhood, the questions her book poses are universal: How much of ourselves should we give to those we love? And how much must we betray them to grow up?”—Vogue NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • O: The Oprah Magazine • Time • NPR • Good Morning America • San Francisco Chronicle • The Guardian • The Economist • Financial Times • Newsday • New York Post • theSkimm • Refinery29 • Bloomberg • Self • Real Simple • Town & Country • Bustle • Paste • Publishers Weekly • Library Journal • LibraryReads • Book Riot • Pamela Paul, KQED • New York Public Library




Al Capone Does My Shirts


Book Description

The Newbery Honor Book and New York Times Bestseller that is historical fiction with a hint of mystery about living at Alcatraz not as a prisoner, but as a kid meeting some of the most famous criminals in our history. Al Capone Does My Shirts has become an instant classic for all kids to read! Today I moved to Alcatraz, a twelve-acre rock covered with cement, topped with bird turd and surrounded by water. I'm not the only kid who lives here. There are twenty-three other kids who live on the island because their dads work as guards or cooks or doctors or electricians for the prison, like my dad does. And then there are a ton of murderers, rapists, hit men, con men, stickup men, embezzlers, connivers, burglars, kidnappers and maybe even an innocent man or two, though I doubt it. The convicts we have are the kind other prisons don't want. I never knew prisons could be picky, but I guess they can. You get to Alcatraz by being the worst of the worst. Unless you're me. I came here because my mother said I had to. A Newbery Honor Book A New York Times Bestseller A People magazine "Best kid's Book" An ALA Book for Young Adults An ALA Notable Book A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year A Krikus Reviews Editor's Choice A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year A Parents' Choice Silver Honor Book A New York Public Library "100 Titles for Reading and Sharing" Selection A New York Public Library Best Book for the Teen Age *"Choldenko's pacing is exquisite. . . . [A] great read."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review *"Exceptionally atmospheric, fast-paced and memorable!"—Publishers Weekly, starred review *"The story, told with humor and skill, will fascinate readers."—School Library Journal, starred review "Al is the perfect novel for a young guy or moll who digs books by Gordon Korman, or Louis Sachar."—Time Out New York for Kids "Funny situations and plot twists abound!"—People magazine "Heartstopping in some places, heartrending in others, and most of all, it is heartwarming."—San Francisco Chronicle