In So Many Words

Big Daddy’s Tales From the Lighter Side of Raising a Kid With Autism by F. Lewis Stark

Loved, loved this! Sooooo funny!! Here’s the full review on this one.

Times Tables the Fun Way: A Picture Method of Learning the Multiplication Facts by Judy Liautaud and Dave Rodriguez

A friend of mine who has a son with Asperger’s recommended this book to me. Although he is incredibly smart, he was stuck on learning his times tables, but with this book he had them down almost instantly. I decided to give this a try myself and see how Michael would like it.

Turns out he loved it! He enjoyed the little tricks they give for certain numbers, such as calling “0″ the king because he wants everyone to be like him or calling “1″ a mirror because any number sees itself. He also liked the stories that they made up for the harder to remember facts. I was impressed with how appealing the book was and was very glad that he enjoyed it. And multiplication seems to be going quite smoothly, which is a good thing!

The Ultimate Guide to Sensory Processing in Children by Roya Ostovar, Ph.D.

This is a wonderful book from a fascinating perspective that added a lot to the discussion about sensory processing disorder. Full review coming soon!

Updated 7/3/11 – read full review here

Treachery in Death by J.D. Robb

Ahh, who can resist a detective novel set in the future, featuring lots of high-tech and fast-paced action along with a fascinating cast of colorful characters. I love these books and grabbed it off the shelf the second I saw it, despite the number of books already sitting next to my bed waiting to be read. And it didn’t disappoint.

Minding Frankie by Maeve Binchy

Another charming story from one of my favorite Irish writers, full of fascinating characters and centered around Frankie, a baby girl whose mother passes away from cancer immediately after giving birth to her. Although the fact that Frankie’s future wasn’t completely settled kept me rushing through a bit to see what happened, I still enjoyed this book enough to recommend it highly!

Have you read any of these? What did you think?

Title: Big Daddy’s Tales From the Lighter Side of Raising a Kid With Autism
Author: F. Lewis Stark
Length: 178 pages
Genre: Humor
Publisher/Date: CreateSpace, 2011
Source: Review copy

For anyone familiar with Big Daddy from Big Daddy Autism, you will totally understand why I was so excited to have the chance to read and review his recently released book. The full title alone is quite a mouthful — “Big Daddy’s Tales From the Lighter Side of Raising a Kid With Autism: Never before published hilarity, favorite posts from the blog, marginally helpful tips, poorly drawn cartoons galore, and oodles of original stories from some of Big Daddy’s favorite bloggers.”

For those of you who haven’t already been introduced, here’s a bit of background info:

F. Lewis Stark, aka “Big Daddy Autism,” is the father of a beautiful, thirteen year old autistic boy. Upon hearing Griffin’s diagnosis over a decade ago, he felt as though his world collapsed. Big Daddy often wished there was a resource available to show fathers that raising a child with a disability was not all about sorrow, lost hopes and heartache.

That led him to start a blog and write his first book. On his blog, and in his book, Big Daddy uses hilarious anecdotes from his experience in raising his quirky son as jumping off points to demonstrate that, while his life did not turn out as he expected, raising an autistic kid is far from misery. Big Daddy shows how acceptance, gratitude and humor help to overcome a great deal of adversity.

As excited as I was when the book arrived, I was even more thrilled to find that it had been autographed by all four members of the Big Daddy family, thus earning it a permanent spot on my bookshelf.

Big Daddy’s Tales includes so many of the things readers of the blog have come to know and love – elevators, The Weather Channel and Wilford Brimley, just to name a few. Besides that, any book in which the first chapter is titled “And Then There Was Screaming” definitely has my attention. Take, for instance, this story of a routine blood test:

Griffin squirmed, wriggled, and squealed so much that, even though there was only one pinprick, my shirt wound up covered in blood. The nurses must have thought we had hit an artery. I left the office looking like an extra from the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan. I almost wish I had a fender bender on the way home just so I could have seen the reaction on the face of the other driver as I stumbled out of the car covered in blood.

Ahh, it makes me chuckle just reading it again.

Sprinkled amidst the Griffin tales and Big Daddy cartoons are essays contributed by fellow bloggers who are also parents of kids with special needs. And no, I’m not going to list them all here – you’ll just have to get your own copy of the book (available in paperback or for the Kindle, hint, hint) to find out who they are!

At the end of the book, Big Daddy even gets serious for a moment and shares some of the lessons he and Mrs. Big Daddy have learned over the years. Number 2 on his list is, appropriately enough, “Laugh. A lot.” As he puts it, “We have discovered that, by finding and recognizing the humor in our lives, we are better able to survive it.”

Big Daddy, thanks for helping us all take some time to lighten up a bit and find something to laugh about. And thanks to Griffin, Mrs. Big Daddy and Lil Sis for just being awesome!

As mentioned previously, my copy of this books was graciously given to me for free and I’m not giving it away to anyone! You can get your own copy at Amazon or find out more at Big Daddy Autism.

Starting Sensory Therapy: Fun Activities for the Home and Classroom! by Bonnie Arnwine

This is a great little book that I had the pleasure of receiving a review copy to read. I will be finishing up my full review soon, but wanted to list it here just for keeping track of all my books.

The Uncharted Path: My Journey with Late-Diagnosed Autism by Rachel B. Cohen-Rottenberg

You may already be familiar with Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg as the blog author of Journeys with Autism. Even if you aren’t, I would highly recommend reading this compelling memoir of her life. I was deeply touched by much of what she shared, probably more than you can imagine, and I found her observations on her own coping strategies and on the nature of autism itself to be extremely insightful.

The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships: Decoding Social Mysteries Through the Unique Perspectives of Autism by Dr. Temple Grandin and Sean Barron, Edited by Veronica Zysk

I have had this book on my wish list for quite a while and am so glad that I finally read it. Although the way the text switches back and forth between the two authors and the editor was a bit disconcerting at times, I did appreciate having the perspectives of these two very different people brought together in one discussion on this important topic. The book is aimed primarily at parents and educators of children with autism, but I believe it could be very helpful to teenagers or adults with autism who are reading it for themselves.

There are ten unwritten rules shared in this book, although the first four words of the first rule (“Rules are not absolute”) give you a hint that this is anything but a black-and-white manual. The most helpful part for me was actually in the beginning of the book, where Temple talks about the difference between social skills and emotional relatedness and encourages adults to focus on teaching their child appropriate social behaviors while recognizing and accepting that he or she may not relate to others emotionally in the same way they do.

Daughters-in-Law by Joanna Trollope

I have long been a fan of Joanna Trollope, and this recent novel is no exception. When I saw it being reviewed by Elizabeth at 5 Minutes for Books, I immediately added it to my library list and was lucky enough to get it very quickly!

At its center are Anthony and Rachel Brinkley and how they cope with the changes that come as their youngest son follows in his two older brothers’ footsteps by getting married and starting his own life separate from theirs. Although the road is a bit bumpy, in the end the growth in each character brings them to a stronger and truer place in their lives.

The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie by Wendy McClure

I must admit that I, like Wendy, fell in love with Laura Ingalls and her adventures as a young girl. I have read the entire series of Little House books more times than I can count, as well as many related books. Although I am aware that they are not autobiographical, but were rather written to give future generations a sense of what it was like then, I have never pursued that line of thought very far. I simply enjoy being taken away to another time and place.

It was with a bit of trepidation, therefore, that I began reading this account of Ms. McClure’s own exploration of the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family. In a few cases, my feelings were justified; for example, I had not liked Rose Wilder much before this, and I like her even less now. In terms of the book itself, however, I found it to be extremely enjoyable and fascinating. I greatly appreciated the writing style as much as the content and laughed out loud at least a dozen times during the course of the book. I would definitely recommend this book to any and all Little House book fans.

You can see all the books I’ve finished so far this year on the bookshelf on my Books page or read all of my mini reviews by clicking on the 2011 Reads tag. I am also joining in on the Spring Reading Thing hosted by Callapidder Days, and you can see my list of what I plan to read this spring at my SRT11 post.

I finally made it through all the posts on the February What’s On Your Nightstand? and was surprised by how non-fiction heavy so many of the lists are. While I do read non-fiction, I tend to heavily favor novels. I did still find quite a number of books for my TBR list, though.

As we move into the third month of the year, I am still on my Mercedes Lackey kick and enjoying it very much! And I have even read some more short stories, which is a sort of personal challenge for this year.

Here are my thoughts on my most recent reads:

The Best Kind of Different: Our Family’s Journey with Asperger’s Syndrome by Shonda Shilling
I picked up this “diagnosis memoir,” as I tend to think of them, on a whim from the library and am glad I did. The writer is refreshingly open about her experiences becoming a wife and mom while her husband is involved in a demanding baseball career and shares candidly about the ups and downs of parenting a child with Asperger’s Syndrome both before and after the diagnosis.

We hear a lot about the grieving process that parents can go through upon receiving the news that their child has a disability. Some parents feel intensely sad that their dreams for their child may not be realized and some may also feel guilty for things they think may have done to cause the problem. While Shonda does not mention these, she does touch on something that I had felt but not verbalized as being a part of grief. Here’s what she says:

It was both comforting and upsetting to read these Web sites. On the one hand they offered a clear explanation of why my son acted the way he did. On the other hand it hurt to realize how clueless I’d been about my own child and how I hadn’t been doing right by him. I could only read so much, a little at a time.

I think this is as good a representation of the combination of relief and sorrow that came upon me once we had a diagnosis of autism for Michael as I have read. I was so glad to have some direction, but so sad that no one had been able to tell me how to communicate with him and help him earlier. And I think the sadness and anger, and sometimes fear, that sometimes hit me even now are directly related to my desire for everyone in his world to treat him with the understanding and respect that he deserves while teaching him in a way he can understand how to be a good friend and student and, later, employee and citizen.

I would recommend this to book to anyone who wants to understand more about Asperger’s Syndrome. You do not have to be at all familiar with disability to connect with the story or the family in the book. There is also quite a bit of discussion about the dad’s role in the family and the struggles and growth they have experienced both in their marriage and their parenting over the years. Many books about family stories are focused on mom’s experience much more than dad’s, but this book has a lot that dads in this situation can likely relate to, even if they aren’t baseball stars!

What I Didn’t See and Other Stories by Karen Joy Fowler
After several years of avoiding short stories, I decided I needed to stop the silliness and read some this year. I think I was avoiding them partly because I wouldn’t want to get engrossed in a story only to have it be over so much earlier than a novel would be.

Having read this collection, I am reminded that another reason I have tended not to read them was that, when done well, they require your attention at every moment. But that’s also the beauty of a great short story, that you can experience an entire world in just a few pages.

Fortune’s Fool (Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, Book 3) by Mercedes Lackey
This one was just as much fun as the first two, and perhaps even more as we see two characters from very different cultures and environments meet and fall in love, only to be separated by danger and have to use all of their wits and skill to find a way out.

Reserved for the Cat (Elemental Masters, Book 5) by Mercedes Lackey
I’m still waiting on book 3 to come in at the library, but I definitely enjoyed this one much more than book 4. It really gives you the flavor of the entertainment world at the time, both in France and England. And the cat is great!

Finding the Way and Other Tales of Valdemar, edited by Mercedes Lackey
Wow – my third short story collection this year already! I enjoyed most of the stories in this book, although there were a couple that seemed to miss the mark on readability and didn’t seem (to me at least) to fit in as well with the theme.

You can see all the books I’ve finished so far this year on the bookshelf on my Books page or read all of my mini reviews by clicking on the 2011 Reads tag.

Title: This Lovely Life: A Memoir of Premature Motherhood
Author: Vicki Forman
Length: 272 pages
Genre: Memoir
Publisher/Date: Mariner Books, 2009
Source: Library copy

This Lovely Life: A Memoir of Premature Motherhood by Vicki Forman is a deeply moving account of the birth of her twins Ellie and Evan at twenty-three weeks gestation and the story that unfolded following that event.

As Tom Bissell writes in the foreword,

This is a story about children born into circumstances that medicine cannot currently prevent and parents cannot possible prepare for.

This Lovely Life forced me to think about not only my responsibility to my fellow human beings but also what can reasonably be asked of a society’s member when they are dealing with stunted lives that, for the rest of the community, are only abstractions.

And this is so true of how I felt after reading this book. So many questions are raised about the rights and responsibilities of parents, doctors and even the government with regard to providing what some would consider extreme measures of care, and the answers are not clear cut from any angle.

It is also a story of how a person can adapt to an ever-changing definition of what life will be like, with new problems and diagnoses, new medications and therapies, new outlooks and prognoses around every turn. And how someone lives with grief – over both a daughter who never left the hospital and a son who did.

I recently received a review copy of Cowboy & Wills: A Remarkable Little Boy and the Puppy That Changed His Life by Monica Holloway, which is the story of her son Wills’ diagnosis with autism and the journey she embarked on to find answers and the help that he needed. Amazingly enough, one of the best answers she found was in Cowboy, the golden retriever puppy who made the biggest difference of all.

As I read this book, I could really identify with Monica’s struggles to deal with all of the emotions that come along with having a child with autism, accepting the diagnosis and finding your way through the maze of therapies and programs that are out there.

Although my husband was not living apart from us, as Monica’s was due to his job, I definitely took on the burden of researching and filling out forms and making appointments for my son, as I think most moms do. (My husband is more than willing to take time off work for whatever meetings and other needs Michael has, but my schedule and organizational strengths made it natural for me to take the lead in that area.)

It is always difficult to see your child not fit in to a typical recreational or educational setting, and even harder when the professionals in those settings aren’t willing to do what it takes to make inclusion successful for everyone involved. I cried along with Monica when the director of Wills’ private kindergarten says they will deal with it:

Maybe we’d found a place where we belonged. I broke down into embarrassing sobs.
Neal was sympathetic. “I know this is difficult, Monica.”
I shook my head, rifling through my purse for a Kleenex or a Starbucks napkin. “I’m not crying because it’s difficult, it’s always difficult. I’m crying because you care so much. I’m crying because you aren’t giving up on Wills.”
“CCS is a community,” Neal explained. “It’s good for other students to see that someone can struggle and still be accepted.”

Monica seeks out many different resources for Wills’, but it is when they get him a puppy that they really see him start to come out of his shell. Cowboy is a natural draw for adults and children alike, and Wills begins to gain confidence and interact more with the world around him through her. Although she only lives for 2 1/2 years due to illness, she truly changes his life.

If you are interested in reading an excerpt from Cowboy & Wills, simply click on the link to download it. (Please let me know if you have any trouble with this, as it is the first time I have tried to link to a Word document on my blog.) You can also view the trailer below – here’s the link to the source if it’s not coming through on here.

Don’t Forget the Giveaway!
I am excited to be able to offer a free copy of this book to one of my readers with a US mailing address. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post and include a valid email address so I can contact you if you win. Comments will be closed at midnight on August 7th, and the winner will be announced shortly thereafter.

Thanks to everyone who entered my book giveaway over the last week!

And now, the winners (chosen randomly):

The copy of Rex: A Mother, Her Autistic Child, and the Music that Transformed Their Lives is going to Meg from The Pages of Our Crazy Life.

Meg said, “I know I’m a complete sap, but I love the Chicken Soup… books. The one about Special Needs had me crying and cheering and hoping. Of course, I’ve read dozens of autism specific books, Temple Grandin’s are so wonderfully full of information and her mother’s book was an awesome look into the families perspective. Novel over, add me to your list!! I have A Friend Like Henry on hold at my library, but haven’t read it yet!”

And the copy of A Friend Like Henry goes to Beth Shepherd, who said, “I would love to win and read this book. The best inspirational book I have ever read was the Bible. Thank you!

I have emailed each of you and will send out your book as soon as I hear back with your mailing address.

Since I asked everyone who entered to tell me one of their favorite inspirational books, I thought it would be nice to list all the recommendations so everyone could see them:

Nanette – Love You Forever by Robert Munsch
Amy – Louder Than Words by Jenny McCarthy
Amy @ Hope Is the Word – Gary Thomas’ books
Livin’ – The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
Doris – The Boy Who Loved Windows by Patricia Stacey
Laura – The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns
Kristi – Rachel’s Tears by Beth Nimmo, Darrell Scott and Steve Rabey
Beth Shepherd: The Bible
MMW – Always Looking Up by Michael J. Fox
Meg – Chicken Soup for the Soul: Special Needs by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Heather McNamara and Karen Simmons
Betty and Boo’s Mommy – The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow
Kim V – Helen Keller’s biography
MJ – The Shack by William P. Young

Thanks again to everyone who entered for your great book suggestions! Stay tuned for more about books, autism, and maybe even another giveaway once in a while.

The Review

One book that has been on my nightstand for quite a while is Rex: A Mother, Her Autistic Child, and the Music that Transformed Their Lives by Cathleen Lewis. I had seen Rex on a 60 Minutes profile just days before I was contacted by Thomas Nelson about receiving a review copy, so I was very interested in learning more about his story.

Throughout the book, Ms. Lewis shares her thoughts and feelings as she navigates the world of doctors and specialists, special education teachers and therapists, and they parallel what many parents of special needs children have dealt with in our own journeys. Some people get it and others don’t, even those who are supposed to, unfortunately.

The thing that struck me as I read was that, although Rex’s physical problems started before birth with a cyst in his brain and continued once he was born with blindness caused by optic nerve hypoplasia, his difficulties in social communication are what pose the biggest challenge in his life.

The turning point for Rex is when he is given a keyboard and his phenomenal musical ability is discovered. As his mother puts it,

Music was Rex’s heart, his soul, the special gift God had given him to communicate like no other. It was his language–his grace. I would keep fighting the external battles of our lives, trying to push back the clouds of our existence, but his was an internal battle, and the look on his face said his spirit was winning.

And Now, the Giveaway

I would love to pass on this inspiring book to encourage someone else, so I am going to give it away here on my blog. I will also be giving away my copy of A Friend Like Henry, which I reviewed back in September, to a second winner. Here’s how it’s going to work:

• To be entered in the random drawing, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post and share one of your favorite inspirational books (it does not have to be about someone with a disability.)
• You can earn another entry by tweeting about this giveaway; just leave another comment with your twitter username once you have done so.
• Entries will be accepted until 10:00 pm Eastern Time on Sunday, April 5th, and the winner will be announced on Monday, April 6th. US mailing addresses only.

For more What’s On Your Nightstand, visit 5 Minutes for Books.

I have been reading a lot this month (more than usual, anyway) and thought I would just list a few of the books that have come across my bedside table:

• The Other Side of Darkness, a fascinating novel by Melody Carlson in which she tackles two difficult subjects – Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and cults. A disturbing but interesting read.
• Another novel, The Almost True Story of Ryan Fisher by Rob Stennet, is a quirky look at modern megachurches.
• On the nonfiction side, there’s The Waiter Rant by the Waiter, an insider look at working in food service in America. While I found this interesting, it definitely has its depressing side as well.
• Within the last week, I picked up Jenny McCarthy’s new book Mother Warriors: A Nation of Mothers Healing Autism Against All Odds and devoured it within 24 hours. In it, she tells her story from when she started speaking out after writing her first book and also shares the stories of several different families who have seen biomedical interventions make a huge difference for their children. Very inspiring!

So that’s what sticks out in my mind from the last few weeks. If you have a suggestion for my November reading list, feel free to let me know in the comments!

I had the opportunity recently to receive a copy of A Friend Like Henry by Nuala Gardner to review and eagerly accepted because it is so helpful and encouraging to read about other families’ experiences with autism. This book is the story of Jamie and Nuala Gardner, and their son Dale. The book opens with an all-too-familiar story of knowing something is different about your child and being frustrated in your attempts to find out exactly what it is, and then of pushing to get the help and support he needs once you do have a diagnosis.

But the story takes an interesting turn when the Gardners bring a new member into the family, a golden retriever puppy they name Henry, after Dale’s favorite Thomas train. Dale takes to the dog right away – talking and playing with him, letting him share his space, and loving him. And it is this connection that opens the door for Dale. You can hear about it in their own words in this YouTube video:

Although I appreciated a lot of things that were shared in the book, I will leave you with a powerful statement from the Afterword:

“If I had to say just one thing about autism as a disability, it is this: we must never underestimate how hard a person affected has to work every day, all day, to live by our society’s rules and to fit in. The anxiety and effort this takes is always immense, and, like their autism, it is for the rest of their life.”

So what books are on your nightstand? Visit 5 Minutes for Books to find other participants or to post your own.

And while you’re hopping around the blogosphere today, check out this week’s Try This Tuesday post, contributed by Jenny at Special Considerations.