Manga Review: With the Light: Raising An Autistic Child Vol. 3 by Keiko Tobe

With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child Vol. 3
By Keiko Tobe
Yen Press

One of the big differences between Japanese manga and American comic books and graphic novels has always been the wide range of topics that the Japanese comics are willing to tackle.

Here we have a 500-page manga volume on the life of a young boy with autism and his family and teachers. I picked this up at the Boston Comic Con last fall. It's the third volume in a series that collects the original serialized installments of the manga. Although I had not read the first two volumes, I found this to be a reasonably good starting point for the series.

Hikaru is in grade 5, in a classroom run by an older special ed teacher who can be reluctant to try out the innovative methods that had helped Hikaru to make progress in his previous years of school. His mother, Sachiko Azuma, has to advocate for her son constantly. Fortunately, she has the help of a number of teachers and volunteers at the school and at a local support organization.

Still, the challenges can be overwhelming, especially with another toddler in the home, her husband facing uncertainty at his job, and such "normal" parenting concerns as the chicken pox to contend with.

Hikaru has a rough time of it at the school's parents night, and is faced with his first real time away from home when the school takes an overnight field trip.

This book captures an impressive amount of detail in the little triumphs and difficulties of day-to-day life with Hikaru. Educational techniques and innovations in the home are featured, along with gadgets and technology that are helpful in providing ways for Hikaru to express himself and communicate.

Autism, and the treatment of it, remains a topic where there is not always agreement on the best approaches, so I'm sure that not everything in this book will be seen as completely accurate or effective. But the book is written (and drawn!) with an obvious level of care and respect for the topic. The frustrations and complications are presented alongside the triumphs, with an underlying message of acceptance and understanding.

The book is also rich in subplots and drama that keep the story moving along and add to the entertainment value. This was a fun book to read, and Tobe's artwork is lovely. It's very accessible to readers who are new to Manga (such readers will have to get used to reading right-to-left, but the artwork is very clear and easy to follow). Although this volume is good as a starting point, it does leave many of the subplots to be resolved in later volumes.

The characters are balanced and often complex. They make mistakes, and suffer the consequences, and they overcome an array of hardships and challenges.

This is a great book for a teenager or pre-teen who has someone with autism in their life or who is interested in learning about the condition in an entertaining format. It's also an engaging read, and a good example of some of the places that the graphic novel format can go other than the traditional superhero fare.

With the Light Vol. 3 was the second book in my goal of reading 50 books in 2009. You can follow the progress of other readers and track your own goal in my group Read 50 Books In One Year. For purposes of my comic book review column, where I rate comics, on a 1-10 scale, this volume gets an 8.