Module 7 - Anything But Typical

Baskin, N.R. (2009). Anything but typical. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.


Summary
Sixth grader Jason, who was diagnosed with autism in third grade narrates the story of his life and allows the reader into his thoughts and feelings about his family, school and a possible girlfriend.  


My Impression
I loved this book - which I think I write more often than not when posting each week.  Although the mind of any person, autistic or not, is a mystery Baskin has taken herself into the mind of a 12-year old autistic boy and allows us to see life from his perspective.  It was eye opening to see how Jason was treated at school and with his peers.  If children don't have experiences with different people how can they teachers don't seek to understand each student can we truly understand what is best for them? This book opened my eyes to autistic students in my school and how I might interact with them, truly accepting them for who they are.


Review

Baskin sets herself a difficult challenge by making her narrator both an aspiring writer and autistic, seemingly more severely so than, for instance, Ted in Siobhan Dowd’s London Eye Mystery. Sixth-grader Jason is being mainstreamed this year (forgoing his one-on-one classroom aide), and sometimes the noises, smells, and interpersonal demands overwhelm him. One of his greatest comforts is the website Storyboard, where he posts a story about a dwarf considering a treatment that would make him normal-sized. When Jason’s story attracts positive online comments from a girl, he begins to feel that he has a friend—even a girlfriend—but is panic-stricken when he learns they are both planning to attend the Storyboard conference. He’s also distressed that his mother, not his father, ends up accompanying him to the conference, but both Jason and his “neurotypical” mom come to realize that in some ways he is more competent than she is. Baskin writes with striking honesty, especially about Jason’s relationship with his parents, and incorporates many details about Jason’s perceptions of and reactions to people that might help readers better understand their autistic peers. The book’s greater strength, though, is communicating to readers how some of the same things that bother Jason might also bother them— whether it is bright lights, noisy rooms, or foods that touch—and estab- lishing common ground.

Smith-D'Arezzo, W. (2009, March). [Review of the book Anything But Typical]. School Library Journal, 55(3), 141. 

Suggestion for Library Use
Because this book is for an older audience, a book commercial sharing about this book for students to view on the school website to interests them in checking the book out.