This links to a great list of resources at the Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism blog. The whole website looks really useful and there’s also a book that compiles some of their best writing as well. 

Look for some of these titles being featured here in the months to come. 

BOOKS

Adults With Autism

• Be Different by John Elder Robison
• Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammett
• Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robison
• Thinking in Pictures (or indeed any book by) Temple Grandin
• The Uncharted Path by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg

Approaches and Advice

• Ask and Tell: Self-Advocacy and Disclosure for People on the Autism Spectrum by Stephen Shore
• The Autism Mom’s Survival Guide by Susan Senator
• Behavioral Intervention for Young Children With Autism: A Manual for Parents and Professionals by Catherine Maurice
• Coloring Outside Autism’s Lines: 50+ Activities, Adventures, and Celebrations for Families with Children with Autism by Susan Walton 
• Managing Meltdowns: Using the S.C.A.R.E.D. Calming Technique With Children and Adults With Autism by Deb Lipsky

Historical and Cultural Contexts

• The Horse Boy by Rupert Isaacson 
• Not Even Wrong by Paul Collins
• Unstrange Minds by Roy Richard Grinker 

For Kids With Autism

• A is for “All Aboard” by Paula Kluth and Victoria Kluth
• All Cats Have Asperger’s Syndrome by Kathy Hoopman

Parenting Perspectives

• Cowboy and Wills by Monica Holloway
• Gravity Pulls You In: Perspectives on Parenting Children on the Autism Spectrum, eds. Kyra Anderson and Vicki Forman
• Making Peace With Autism by Susan Senator
• My Baby Rides the Short Bus, eds. Yantra Bertelli, Jen Silverman, and Sarah Talbot 
• Not My Boy! A Father, A Son, and One Family’s Journey With Autism by Rodney Peete
• A Regular Guy: Growing Up With Autism by Laura Shumaker 

For Siblings of Kids With Autism

•  My Brother Charlie by Holly Robinson Peete and Ryan Elizabeth Peete
• Ian’s Walk by Laurie Lears
• Andy and His Yellow Frisbee by Mary Thompson

My Brother Charlie (2010) by Holly Robinson Peete and Ryan Elizabeth Peete, illustrated by Shane W. Evans.

Callie and Charlie are twins and share a lot of things: curly hair and brown eyes, their dog, Harriet, rolling in the grass, music, football. But at some point in their young lives, Charlie is diagnosed with autism. 

This story is told through the POV of Callie and chronicles her love for her brother and also her frustrations having a brother with autism. 

“Charlie is good at so much. He knows the names of all the American presidents! He’s a fish in the water…He likes to show off his shell collection, his new sneakers, and how well he plays ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider” on the piano….Charlie has autism. But autism doesn’t have Charlie. If you ever get to meet my brother, you’ll feel lucky to be his friend. He won’t care if you have the coolest sneakers, or if you are the best at sports. He’ll just like you for who you really are. That’s Charlie.”

This book is written by Holly Robinson Peete and her daughter, Ryan Elizabeth Peete. Holly’s son (who is Ryan’s twin brother) was diagnosed with autism. They both want to help us understand how to be there for kids on the spectrum. 

The book also includes some lessons that Ryan would like others to know, excerpted below: 

-If someone who has autism doesn’t respond right away when you speak to him, it doesn’t mean he’s being rude. Socializing can be challenging for people with autism. 

-Many people have trouble making friends, but it’s even harder for boys and girls with autism. Include people with autism even more than you would others. 

Anything But Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin.

EXCERPT

That kid is weird (he’s in SPED, you know). He blinks his eyes, sometimes one at a time. Sometimes both together. They open and close, open and close, letting the light in, shutting it out. The world blinks on and off.

And he flaps his hands, like when he is excited, or just before he is going to say something, or when he is thinking. He does that the most when he is on the computer or reading a book. When his mind is focused on the words, it separates from his body, his body that almost becomes a burden, a weight.

Weight.

Wait.

Only his fingers don’t stand still while they wait. They flap at the ends of his hands, at the ends of his wrists.

Like insects stuck on a string, stuck on a net. Like maybe they want to fly away. Maybe he does too.

In first grade they put a thick, purple rubber band across the bottom bar of his desk chair, so Jason would have something to jiggle with his feet when he was supposed to be sitting still. In second grade Matthew Iverson sent around a note saying, If you think Jason Black is a retard, sign this, and Matthew got sent to the principal’s office, which only made things worse for Jason. 

In the third grade Jason was diagnosed with ASD, autistic spectrum disorder. But his mother will never use that term. She prefers three different letters: NLD, nonverbal learning disorder. Or these letters: PDD-NOS, pervasive developmental disorder- non-specific. When letters are put together, they can mean so much, and they can mean nothing at all. 

both by Gennifer Choldenko

EXCERPT

Nothing is the way it’s supposed to be when you live on an island with a billion birds, a ton of bird crap, a few dozen rifles, machine guns and automatics and 278 of America’s worst criminals—“the cream of the criminal crop” as one of our felons likes to say. The convicts on Alcatraz are rotten to the core, crazy in the head, and as slippery as eels in axle grease.

And then there’s me. Moose Flanagan. I live on Alcatraz along with 24 other kids and one more on the way.  My father works as a prison guard and an electrician in the cell house up top. I live where most of us “civilians” do in 64 building which is dockside on the East side of Alcatraz—a base hit from the mobster Al Capone.

Not many 12-year-old boys can say that. Not many kids can say when their toilet is stopped up, they get Seven Fingers, the Ax Murderer, to help them out, either …