THE REASON I JUMP DISCUSSION

Hey there Novel Spirits!  Time really flies when you're half crazy (like me).  I can't believe that it's only a little more than a week until our next meeting!  I've been slacking on my blogging duties.  So without further ado:

Since THE REASON I JUMP is written by an autistic teenager, we started out our discussion by talking about whether any of us know anyone with autism.  Deuce worked with some kids with autism when she was a preschool teacher and one of Baron's friends in the army had a son with autism.  The rest of us do not personally know anyone with autism; none of us knew much about autism prior to reading this book.  I think all of us had done a little independent research about autism, but still found it a difficult concept to grasp since autism is a "spectrum" rather than a single, defined disorder.  This brought us to one of our first criticisms of the book: that the author has a tendency to speak for all children with autism, when the introduction to the book emphasized that autism is highly individualized.  

The second major criticism we had was the repetitiveness of the book, though someone pointed out that the author mentioned that repetition and routine are comforting to him, which may explain this particular issue.  

The most striking, and sad, aspect of the book for all of us (I think) was the author's struggle to express himself and the isolation he felt at being "trapped" within himself.  It is difficult to imagine trying to say something, but accidentally saying the opposite, or realizing that you are doing something you've been told not to do, but not being able to stop yourself.  

There were some parts that seemed a little whack, like that autism is caused by our disconnection with nature.  We also wondered how much was "lost in translation" and how much gloss was put on it by the translators.  Our ultimate conclusion was that the target audience for the book was parents of children with autism who would be comforted and reassured by the message that their child empathized with them and doesn't want to act out.  For those of us who started out with very little knowledge of autism, the book did not really provide much insight into autism.  Overall, we rated it around 2-3 stars.  

I've been enjoying the change of pace with THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, and look forward to our meeting!  Catch ya' later, you hoopy froods!