Three Wonderful Novels That Helped Me Learn About Autism

Sorry about the spacing errors. I can't seem to make them come out correctly thought they look fine in the preview of the article.

Thank you, Clare Stella. I have read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and found it very valuable. I will make note of the other two. I have had a couple of clients who were diagnosed with Aspergers and found The Curious Incident to be helpful in understanding them.

HI Clare - great reviews. My last two articles have a lot of blank space after the text and before commenting, yet in my edit I noticed nothing. Possibly more glitches.

I have not read any of the books, but am well aware of the first two and not the third one. I get so many books from publishers to review on my site but no time to get through them all.

There is this new series for teens about aspergers and I bought one on amazon that looked easy to read. Might do that one next.

Thanks for sharing your perspective on these novels. Feel free to post this to Autism Families as well.

A friend of mine observed my "peculiar" behaviour when under the influence of marijuana, and gave me "The Curious Incident..." as a half-joke because she swears on her life that I'm autistic.

I read it, and it was disconcerting.

You might enjoy reading the other two Soren, to see if you get more information.

I have a copy of "Daniel Isn't Talking" keeping the bookshelf warm, but I haven't read it.

Oh, I loved that book! Wait until you read about the man who helps Daniel.

Didn't they make a movie out of it? Or am I imagining things...

Clare, there's also a whole recent genre of books written by autistic people. I'm at a loss to name these, at this time, but they'd certainly round out anyone's knowledge on this peculiar affliction.

You should really read "Tilt" by Elizabeth Burns.
I think you would enjoy it. It's about a mom with an autistic daughter and her otherwise also extraordinary-circumstance-heavy life.

You can get a used copy off of Amazon for as little as one cent plus shipping. I've got the hard back, but I'm sure it's just as good in softcover or trade paperback. :)

http://www.amazon.com/Tilt-Elizabeth-Burns/dp/0425195929/sr=8-8/qid=1158978639/ref=pd_bbs_8/102-4186573-0832128?ie=UTF8&s=books

clare - thanks so much! i've read the first...should get the rest from the library. thanks!

Another wonderful review Clare. Your review, covering three books no less, is intriguing and amazingly easy to read, flowing as it does from one to the next and then back again to your favorite.

Clare -- what a wonderful review!!
I cataloged "The Incident..." -- one of the first books I worked on, as a matter of fact -- and I was so enchanted I found a copy and read it in one sitting. It's wonderful! I will absolutely look up the others, just on your recommendation.

Clare. How do you get that nice and easy to read spacing and type font in your review. I like it a lot.

Soren, I think the book is too new to be a movie already. If I am wrong, please let me know. I'd love to see a movie of any of these books. E.B., I am going to look for some of the books written by autistic people. It would certainly add to my understanding of this condition. Cindy, I will definitely get a copy of Tilt. Beryl, I type my articles on MS Notepad and then copy and paste them onto the Gather publishing site. Thank you all for your comments and recommendations.

To EB - Autism is not a peculiar affliction. It is a developmental disability. I have been working hard for 8 years to help spread autism awareness and quite surprised to read your definition here in this comment section.

Bonnie, I don't believe that EB meant anything negative by referring to autism as a peculiar affliction. I understood her meaning for peculiar as being characteristic or unusual and affliction as meaning a condition. My two sons have ADHD and hate that it is referred to as a disorder; they think it is a different way of learning and don't like the negativity of the word "disorder." Perhaps you are offended by peculiar affliction but I understood that as meaning that it is unusual in the sense of the symptoms develop often after a period of some years of having "normal" development and then having a change. Affliction is because someone is in distress because of the disability. It does seem to me (through reading only, not experience as I know you have) that these children suffer from the overabundance of stimulus in their environment. Perhaps you could share more with us about that. I have often thought that ADHD is also like that. My sons are bombarded with stimulus in a learning situation and for my oldest son in particular that is very distressing. He had to tape all the lectures in college and then listen to them over and over. He learns primarily by auditory means. As a visual learner myself, I found this very hard to comprehend initially. Bill, my oldest, told me that he was distracted constantly in the classroom. A bee outside the window would draw his attention and he would hyper-focus on that while the teacher was droning away (that's kind of a pun!). He then found that he had completely missed what the teacher was saying. Don't you think that autistic kids also have this ability to hyperfocus? What is quite amazing to me is that statistically autism is on the increase. Do you have any input as to what might be behind that? Or is it that more kids are being diagnosed earlier?

Beryl, As I was writing another article in Notepad, I also realized that I type the article with the Lucinda Sans Unicode Font, Bold, 14. I think that's why it comes out so large.

Excellent article. I've not read any of these, but they sound wonderful. And Clare, I agree re: your comment to Bonnie. I don't think EB meant anything other than what you said. This is indeed a peculiar (unusual) affliction (burden on the person who has it).
I think I read somewhere that many of the behaviors of young children are due to television and video games. There is an ever-increasing speed to what kids see. Even Sesame Street, because it jumps so quickly from one topic to another, encourages the inability to focus. Video games, even those designed for very young children, require the ability to think quickly, jump from one thing to another, and move on whether the prior task is completed or not.
Just a thought.

Great overview of the books, Clare. I've read the Haddon but not the others so I can only add my praise for that one. It was an utterly fantastic read - and so different. I can't wait to read Haddon's new book, A Spot of Bother.

There is a book called "The Acorn People" which was a great lesson about handicapped people. The lesson is similar to that of "Curious Incident" but told in a different (and more obvious) way. I highly recommend that one, too, although the subject matters are different.

One of my heros, right up there with Jesus and Ghandi and Teddy Roosevelt is a woman named Temple Grandin. This autistic woman taught McDonalds corporation that it was profitable to be humane - that cruelty is inefficient. I don't want to fall into the trap that the only autistic heros are ones that make contributions such as she did, or that if a blind person hasn't climbed Everest, then they haven't done something remarkable lately. Great things are done by millions of people every day and in every day life. I just thought of Temple when the topic of autism came up.

Clare, my middle son, Kyle, has ADHD. I would come home from work some days and see him sitting in front of the PlayStation, game in progress, with a novel on his lap, the phone to his ear, and the stereo playing -- and in the midst of it all he'd look up and me and say "Hi! How was your day?" He was doing all these things simultaneously with no idea that this isn't the way the rest of the world functions.

His younger brother, Sean, had AD(no H)D and is completely the opposite: focus is tightly upon one thing at a time, and his frustration level with distractions was occasionally frightening when he was a very small child -- I spent a lot of time helping teachers understand him, and him understand teachers.

(Then we discovered their father has Adult ADD. It was all much better when I had someone to blame. ;-) Sorry -- couldn't resist.)

My point being that, by comparison to Kyle, Sean certainly appeared to be autistic, to the uneducated observer. We all benefit from more education on this topic.

Thank you for the wonderful comments on my book review. I knew it was a lot to put three books in one article but I happened to read them all around the same time (now) and since they all were about autism or conditions similar to autism it seemed right to link them to gether. I am excited about the recommendations you all have given me for other books and authors. Thank you. I didn't know Mark Haddon had a new book. I look forward to reading it. Nancy, I think your comment about current-day entertainment was very valid. I remember trying to read a book to Taylor (my granddaughter) several years ago. She was (and is) a bright little girl but she couldn't sit still long enough to let me read. She did very well with educational TV and videos. I was so disappointed because to me reading was such a lifetime gift that I wanted to share with Taylor. It's a different world now though. I'm not sure Bonnie will see my response to her comment so I think I will email it to her. I don't want to offend anyone with my book review. My goal in writing is to share. I don't think EB meant to offend either. It is an unusual condition in that autistic children seem to have different responses to the environment. As I said, ADHD children seem to also go through that in a different way. Ron, I have read a little about Temple Grandin (love that name!) and will definitely find out some more. As you noted, a person doesn't have to do something special to be special. We all do amazing things at various times. Dannielle, I enjoyed reading about your sons. My Andy is like your Kyle. One time I visited Andy at work and was amazed that he was able to have three (yes 3! he was a computer tech) computers on at one time and know what was going on with each of them. He was monitoring the computers, talking on the phone, eating, and waved me over. As a person who does one thing at a time, I was amazed. ADHD multi-tasking can be a gift. Dannielle, my children's Dad also has ADHD but he refuses to admit it. He REALLY hates the word "disorder." He's in his 60's now but still has a hard time paying attention when someone is talking to him. He's constantly looking around, doing other things, etc. Drove me crazy when we were married. And you're so right, Dannielle, that we can all learn more about education on this topic as well as others involving ways in whcih people are different.

Autism is known as a spectrum disorder, never heard it referred to as an unusual condition, but I tend to even get offended when someone refers to them as quirky, because that seems to me to make light of the disability. Probably what bothers me more is when people call it a disease or assume it is the end of the world and life threatening. That is simply not the case.

I met Temple Grandin last month and tape recorded her speech and had a big lump in my throat when she ended her talk. It was really awesome. I have taped her interviews on tv and read her books.

Maybe I will post an excerpt of the book review I posted elsewhere here.

Thanks Clare for the email. I am taking a break now from writing about autism as my brain is fried, so enjoying other things at the site for awhile.

I appreciate your input, Bonnie. How wonderful to have met Temple Grandin. I don't think anyone here is making light of autism. Sometimes we don't use quite the correct words for something but that comes with being educated about things. Thanks for helping to educate me.

There's another novel, The Speed of Dark, by Elizabeth Moon, that I'd highly recommend.

I had just read "Curious Incident.." when I heard about Moon's book. From Amazon.com's website:

"Corporate life in early 21st-century America is even more ruthless than it was at the turn of the millennium. Lou Arrendale, well compensated for his remarkable pattern-recognition skills, enjoys his job and expects never to lose it. But he has a new boss, a man who thinks Lou and the others in his building are a liability. Lou and his coworkers are autistic. And the new boss is going to fire Lou and all his coworkers--unless they agree to undergo an experimental new procedure to "cure" them.

In The Speed of Dark, Elizabeth Moon has created a powerful, complex, and believable portrayal of a man who varies radically from what is defined as "normal." The author insightfully explores the nature of "normality," identity, choice, responsibility, free will, illness and health, and good and evil. The Speed of Dark is a powerful, moving, illuminating novel in the tradition of Flowers for Algernon, Forrest Gump, and Rain Man."

The book is so good I wanted to read it again (which I will but not right away). My wife, who is NOT a sci fi fan, also loved this book (as well as Curious Incident).

Thanks for sharing your impressions of these three books!

Eric, I have a little book in which I write down books I want to read. "The Speed of Dark" will definitely go on it. Thank you for the recommendation.

There was no diagnosis when I was a boy in the 1950's. You were called stupid or retarded or worse. I was one of those children. I came to realize in later life that my symptoms were that of an autistic. I wrote my story in a novel entitled "The Closer's Song". The novel depicts how I overcame substantial existential odds to deal with my infirmity.