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Children's Books Showing Neurodiversity


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Having reread the awesome responses I got a ways back on books with diverse characters, I'm starting a request for a subcategory of books showing neurodiversity. I'm thinking more increasing DD's knowledge of neurodiversity than just targeting her specific stuff, but would especially love characters that are 2e.

 

She's about to turn 7, reading level is a nonissue, prefers elementary level books and still devours picture books, but give it all to me and I'll add it to my giant spreadsheet for later if it's not right for now!

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We were listening to 'The Girls of Gardenville' or something wholesome sounding like that, downloaded off Librivox. One of the girls *clearly* had dyscalculia, lol. Or at least that's what I told dd. No one can be that rubbish at maths without having a maths disability.

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I'll be interested to hear the responses. I immediately thought of a number of titles that are upper middle grades or YA - like Out of My Mind or Joey Pigza - but I'm struggling to think of much in the picture book or chapter book or early elementary read aloud categories off hand...

 

Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco would be one - dyslexia

I'll add... we saw her talk about this book at the National Book Festival one year and it was incredible. Her story was just incredible because she is dyslexic and it was not discovered until high school that she couldn't read. And, of course, now, she's an award winning writer.

 

Fish in a Tree is a middle grades book about dyslexia.

 

Hank Zipper... I can't remember what? Did he also have dyslexia?

 

 

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The Upside-Down Magic series by Emily Jenkins and Sarah Mlynowski is another where all the main characters have "defective" magic of some sort.

 

Clementine by Sara Pennypacker -- ADD?

 

Gabriella -- this year's American Girl of the Year -- stutters

 

Wonder now has a picture book out: https://smile.amazon.com/Were-All-Wonders/dp/1524769541/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1493092804&sr=1-1

 

 

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Not only is Clementine probably supposed to be read as ADD, but her best friend (whose name completely escapes me) is definitely not typical either.

 

As for Alcatraz and the Evil Librarians, I do like that series, despite the huge hiatus it took. I didn't think of it from a neurodiversity perspective before, but that really fits! Those "talents" really are useful - the character who is late to things is constantly late to assassination attempts, the one who breaks things (that's the main character. He once broke a chicken) breaks weapons as people are using them against him, the one who is bad at math can make objects disappear or multiply by counting them wrong, and the one who gets lost can find places nobody else can get to, that sort of thing. That's not a half-bad analogy!

 

Let me think here.  You know, there's not as much in this field as you might expect.

 

The Real Boy has a character who is explicitly written as autistic, though that's not explained in the text - it would be completely inappropriate for the setting.

 

A Mango Shaped Space skews slightly older, features a main character with synesthesia.

 

Save Me a Seat has a protagonist with auditory processing disorder - I think this may actually be the first time I've ever seen that in a children's book. This is also a book highly suited for your daughter's age - the rest of these suggestions will require some pre-reading.

 

Earth Force Rising explicitly has a cast of autistic characters, who vary greatly in their depictions. I'm not entirely sure what I think about the book, but the author definitely made a real effort here. I certainly don't condemn it, although I do wish there had been more emphasis on autistic strengths aside from the magic phlebotonium.  It is also quite possibly the only middle grade novel I've ever read that uses the word "neurodiversity", though they don't bother to define it.

 

The War That Saved My Life - which is definitely for an older child than your daughter! - has a main character with PTSD. (The author herself, I believe, suffers from it.) There is an important secondary character with serious depression.

 

George is a book about a transgender child - I haven't read it, though.

 

When she gets a bit older, she might try the Young Wizards series. There is a character in a later book who is explicitly autistic (be sure to get the newer edition, not the original - Diane Duane made extensive revisions based on feedback from autistic readers!) and many people have pointed out that Nita and her sister both display several clear autistic traits.

 

If we're going for books that are not explicitly written with this, then we can expand our list a bit more - The Lemonade War, for example, I strongly suspect we're supposed to read the sister as being on the spectrum, and in a later book in the series she interacts with somebody who has a diagnosis of autism.

 

One piece of advice - seriously, avoid Ann M. Martin's books about autism. They are uniformly awful. I don't blame her, exactly, but seriously - don't do this to your kid.

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...

 

Let me think here. You know, there's not as much in this field as you might expect.

 

...

 

If we're going for books that are not explicitly written with this, then we can expand our list a bit more

I honestly didn't expect much of anything, so more/less isn't really applicable. I hadn't found much of anything on my own except for some highly didactic books, so my expectations are pretty low.

 

Explicit isn't required at all. Think more "expanding worldview". I do hope I can help her apply it to herself, but that isn't directly necessary. I pointed out to her this week that Clementine was gifted and ADHD (she's read half the series), and her answer was basically "duh". She can make the connections, it's actually a strength of hers, but finding kids "like her" in books is difficult, even if "like her" is only defined as not "like everyone else". And any neurodiversity will help me put her "her-ness" in better context.

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Huh. It never would have occurred to me to ask this question, but I'm so glad you did, OP. See, that's why I love this board; you all ask questions I didn't even know I wanted the answers to!

 

I also have a 7 year old DD with high IQ, ADHD, and SLD-Written Expression, along with GAD. She recently commented, while listening to me read-aloud Gooney Bird Greene, "She sounds a lot like me!" It helps that GBG looks a lot like DD, too! You might look at this series. It's a long-time favorite in this household of verbose red-headed girls.

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One piece of advice - seriously, avoid Ann M. Martin's books about autism. They are uniformly awful. I don't blame her, exactly, but seriously - don't do this to your kid.

 

You are the second person I've heard with that warning.  (the first of which being why I didn't put her Main Street series on here)  What's so awful about it?

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I honestly didn't expect much of anything, so more/less isn't really applicable. I hadn't found much of anything on my own except for some highly didactic books, so my expectations are pretty low.

 

Explicit isn't required at all. Think more "expanding worldview". I do hope I can help her apply it to herself, but that isn't directly necessary. I pointed out to her this week that Clementine was gifted and ADHD (she's read half the series), and her answer was basically "duh". She can make the connections, it's actually a strength of hers, but finding kids "like her" in books is difficult, even if "like her" is only defined as not "like everyone else". And any neurodiversity will help me put her "her-ness" in better context.

 

I have been trying to get my son to read Clementine because she seems an awful lot like him. But he's never interested.

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You are the second person I've heard with that warning.  (the first of which being why I didn't put her Main Street series on here)  What's so awful about it?

 

She has a tendency to use autistic characters as objects to promote the character development of the NT main characters. In one notable example, she uses an autistic character's death by suicide as a chance for the main character to be all "well, maybe that's for the best".

 

As a general rule, we want disabled characters to be treated as people in their own right, with their own stories - not just as a chance for non-disabled characters to grow. That means we're not "saints", and we're not "burdens", and we don't die just so that the main character can learn to accept death (after coming to accept that they should love us even if we burden them), and we aren't just sitting around bitterly waiting for somebody to love us and teach us that life is valuable even if you're not normal.

 

(It also means that the disability actually exists. If you say somebody has a certain disability, but never show that it affects their life at all, does it really count? No, no it does not.)

 

Explicit isn't required at all. Think more "expanding worldview".

 

Okay. One which springs to mind right off the top of my head is Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree, though I'm never sure what I think about that book. The protagonist is clearly supposed to be read as on the spectrum, though. Let me give this more thought.

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Hah, I did a quick google search, and I think I found a book that may be perfect for you!

 

This Is Not the Abby Show

 

And good reviews, too - I might put that on my TBR list.

 

Also, just remembered, the Extra-Ordinary Princess has a protagonist who is clearly dyslexic, though this is not diagnosed in the book (again, inappropriate for the setting). That's not The Ordinary Princess, which is just a fun book.

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I have been trying to get my son to read Clementine because she seems an awful lot like him. But he's never interested.

 

He might like Joey Pigza... Joey also has ADD. Probably more severely than Clementine and certainly more explicitly. The Joey books also deal with some bad parenting and eventually divorse though, which is another whole deal. They're aimed a bit older too.

 

This is an interesting thread. I know that both at our independent bookstore and at our library, I've seen several books that may as well be titled "This is a Picture Book About Autistic Kids!" some of them that seem geared toward kids on the spectrum and some that are clearly geared to kids who know autistic kids. None of them have looked especially appealing in their own right, so I haven't picked them up to even look through them. It seems like there should be a lot more out there for all kinds of neurodiversity. I wonder if that's the next big children's publishing "thing."

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He might like Joey Pigza... Joey also has ADD. Probably more severely than Clementine and certainly more explicitly. The Joey books also deal with some bad parenting and eventually divorse though, which is another whole deal. They're aimed a bit older too.

 

My son is really getting too old for the Clementine books anyway (One reason I stopped pushing; He's 4th grade, with a higher reading level. Though comprehension slows him down) So depending on how old these may be a better fit now. -- He read The Secret Garden for school and is in the middle of Island of Blue Dolphins. For fun, he's reading

Lincoln's Spymaster: Allan Pinkerton, America's First Private Eye

and the Shadow Children series by Margaret Peterson Haddix

 

Edited by vonfirmath
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My son is really getting too old for the Clementine books anyway (One reason I stopped pushing; He's 4th grade, with a higher reading level. Though comprehension slows him down) So depending on how old these may be a better fit now.

 

Yes, more like 4th grade and up, while Clementine is more like 1st and up, especially as a read aloud.

 

We saw Jack Gantos speak at the National Book Festival... a couple of years ago... and he said basically that he wrote Joey for the kid he would see in pretty much every school group he went to talk to who simply could not sit still. He seems like he was maybe a little like that as a kid himself, honestly.

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