Anything But Typical
Submitted by Book Nut
by Nora Raleigh Baskin
ages: 9-12
First sentence: “Most people like to talk in their own language.”
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Sherry at Semicolon captured my thoughts on this one just perfectly. This book takes you away, makes you think about your perceptions of people, makes you think about language, actions, reactions, and how we treat others.
It also made me cry. (Which is a rare and unusual thing, and also mildly embarrassing, since I was reading this while sitting in the salon waiting for M to get her hair cut…)
Twelve-year-old Jason is autistic. He’s full of labels and letters — ADOS, LD, HFA, PDD-NOS, NT — and yet, those labels and letters and names don’t define him. Or, at least, he tries not to be defined by them. Yes, getting through the day is difficult, and any little thing can set him off, often beyond his control. But, what he really wants to be seen as, defined by, is his ability to write stories.
(As an aside, I loved this quote:
“But really, if you ask me, there is only one kind of plot.
One.
Stuff happens.
That’s it.”
So true.)
He posts his stories on a fanfiction website, Storyboard, and one of them got a comment from PhoenixBird — who happens to be a girl. Jason and PhoenixBird seem to connect; at one point, he tells people that she’s his “girlfriend”. Then, there’s a Storyboard convention, and it turns out that PhoenixBird will be there. Jason — because of past experiences, because he knows how people react to him when meeting him for the first time — is anxious about going.
I don’t want to give much more than that away. I’ve read books about autistic kids before, but never have I felt so involved in the life of one. Baskin stuck us, as readers, inside Jason’s head — and sometimes he was an unreliable narrator because his interpretation of events didn’t always match up with what “actually” happened — and let us live through his triumphs, pains, anxiety, hopes, fears, love. It’s a beautifully written book; not because the language is poetic, though sometimes it is, but because it’s spare enough, tight enough, there are no wasted words, no wasted pages.
Perfect.
