I grew up undiagnosed autistic. I got excellent grades and never caused much trouble, so no one could tell what was going on inside. But sensory overload and confusion over social dynamics kept me in a bewildering muddle. Books and stories are what helped me through! But there were no stories featuring neurodivergent kids like me, so, as an adult, I resolved to write some. I want to bust stigmas and write honest, fun, heartfelt stories for kids who might be going through their own ‘bewildering muddles.’ Now, I'm an award-winning author of several children's novels and a picture book. I'm also co-founder/editor of A Novel Mind, a web resource on mental health and neurodiversity in children's literature.
Bat is a sweet young autistic boy who lives with his big sister and veterinarian-mom (and weekends with his loving dad). He adopts and helps raise a baby skunk. The lovely, simple story – aimed at younger, chapter-book readers -- describes Bat’s autism so naturally. This is how I believe all stories of neurodivergent kids should be written: in a way that illuminates and humanizes and shows us what we share – not in a way that pathologizes, or others, or highlights a laundry list of symptoms.
The Bat stories are charming and simple, and they get it right.
The first book in a funny, heartfelt, and irresistible young middle grade series starring an unforgettable young boy on the autism spectrum.
For Bixby Alexander Tam (nicknamed Bat), life tends to be full of surprises-some of them good, some not so good. Today, though, is a good-surprise day. Bat's mom, a veterinarian, has brought home a baby skunk, which she needs to take care of until she can hand him over to a wild-animal shelter.
But the minute Bat meets the kit, he knows they belong together. And he's got one month to show his mom that a baby skunk…
M. is an autistic teen girl who desperately wants to be just like everyone else. Who longs to know the proper things to say and do.
And this was me. I was an undiagnosed autistic girl who longed to know the “right” ways to be/talk/act/feel, who never could quite de-code social situations or feel like I fit in.
Written collaboratively with the autistic girls who attend the Limpsfield-Grange School and their teacher, Vicky Martin, this book captured something special about the tricky social dilemmas of young teendom, something that resonated so deeply in me – I loved its truth-telling, and how funny and sad it was in turns – that’s how I write, too.
M. That's what I'd like you to call me please. I'll tell you why later.
Welcome to M's world. It's tipsy-turvy, sweet and sour, and the beast of anxiety lurks outside classrooms ready to pounce. M just wants to be like other teenagers her age who always know what to say and what to do. So why does it feel like she lives on a different plane of existence to everyone else?
Written by the students of Limpsfield Grange, a school for girls with Autism Spectrum Disorder with communication and interaction difficulties, M is for Autism draws on real life…
Return to Hope Creek is a second-chance rural romance set in Australia.
Stella Simpson's career and engagement are over. She returns to the rural community of Hope Creek to heal, unaware her high school and college sweetheart, Mitchell Scott, has also moved back to town to do some healing of…
Young Gwendolyn Rogers struggles in middle school and with friends. She’s impulsive and makes poor decisions – and longs for a clear diagnosis of ADHD. Author Caela Carter, who has ADHD herself, lets us slip inside her character in such a fascinating way. We see how much Gwendolyn longs to get things right, how much she cares about her family and friends, even though she makes mistakes and does things to annoy them.
From the critically acclaimed author of the ALA Notable and Charlotte Huck Honor Book Forever, or a Long, Long Time comes a moving own-voices story that shines a light on how one girl’s learning differences are neither right nor wrong…just perfectly individual. For fans of Alyson Gerber, Cammie McGovern, and Kathryn Erskine.
No one can figure out what Gwendolyn Rogers’s problem is—not her mom, or her teachers, or any of the many therapists she’s seen. But Gwendolyn knows she doesn’t have just one thing wrong with her: she has fifty-four.
At least, according to a confidential school report (that she…
Addie is a young autistic girl who learns her small Scottish town used to burn witches – and her empathy for these misunderstood forebears spurs her to petition the town for a memorial for them. Addie has an autistic teenage sister, Keedie, who is so wise and strong and wonderful. This book made me wish so hard I could have had a sister like Keedie, myself, to help me navigate the world.
Perfect for readers of Song for a Whale and Counting by 7s, a neurodivergent girl campaigns for a memorial when she learns that her small Scottish town used to burn witches simply because they were different.
"A must-read for students and adults alike." -School Library Journal, Starred Review
Ever since Ms. Murphy told us about the witch trials that happened centuries ago right here in Juniper, I can’t stop thinking about them. Those people weren’t magic. They were like me. Different like me.
I’m autistic. I see things that others do not. I hear sounds that they can ignore. And…
When sixteen-year-old Ashlee Sutton's home life falls apart, she is beset by a rare mental illness that makes her believe she's clairvoyant. While most people scoff at her, she begins demonstrating an uncanny knack for sometimes predicting the future, using what could either be pure luck or something more remarkable.…
Naoki was thirteen when he wrote this short, beautiful, poetic account of his life as a non-verbal autistic person. (He has since written another, equally brilliant volume about being a young man – Fall Down Seven Times, Get Up Eight.) What stays with me, from his writing, are his incredible powers of observation, his exquisite descriptions. I have never been nonverbal, but I experienced my childhood as if I was peering at an inexplicable “people-show” from behind an impenetrable pane of glass. These books are close to my heart, and really grew my empathy.
The No. 1 Sunday Times and internationally bestselling account of life as a child with autism, now an award-winning documentary film.
'It will stretch your vision of what it is to be human' Andrew Solomon, The Times What is it like to have autism? How can we know what a person - especially a child - with autism is thinking and feeling?
This groundbreaking book, written by Naoki Higashida when he was only thirteen, provides some answers. Severely autistic and non-verbal, Naoki learnt to communicate by using a 'cardboard keyboard' - and what he has to say gives a rare…
Twelve-year-old Charlie is a bird-loving autistic boy on a cross-country trip with his siblings – and under the care of a strange young woman named Ludmila, who is taking them to reunite with Charlie’s war-injured dad. Charlie tries to spot the birds that he and his dad had once hoped to find together someday — their “Someday” birds list. He hopes it can be like a gift he can give his dad, to help him feel better. But in the amazing, unexpected adventures along the way, Charlie discovers that “sometimes the birds you look for… are not the birds you find.”
Hailed as “a triumphant debut with the resonance and depth of an instant classic” and translated into many languages, this award-winner is beloved by readers young and old.
Brother. Do. You. Love. Me. is a true story of brotherly love overcoming all. Reuben, who has Down's syndrome, was trapped in a care home during the pandemic, spiralling deeper into a non-verbal depression. From isolation and in desperation, he sent his older brother Manni a text, "brother. do. you.…
Bold, funny, and shockingly honest, Ambidextrous is like no other memoir of 1950s urban childhood.
Picano appears to his parents and siblings to be a happy, cheerful eleven-year-old possessed of the remarkable talent of being able to draw beautifully and write fluently with either hand. But then he runs into…
