Top 10 Books and Websites

by Kristina Chew and Dora Raymaker

Ten essential readings, five each from Dora and Kristina.

Dora's Picks

1. "Don't Mourn for Us" (1993)
Jim Sinclair

A powerful, short essay written by an autistic individual to help parents understand what it's like from "the other side." If Dora had to pick just one thing for the family of a child on the autistic spectrum to read, it would be this essay.

2. Autism and the Myth of the Person Alone (2005)
Douglas Biklen, Richard Attfield, Larry Bissonnette, Lucy Blackman, Alberto Frugone, Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay, Sue Rubin, Jamie Burke

The perspectives of the book's seven autistic authors, all of whom have little or no spoken communication and were at one time considered intellectually disabled, gives a wonderful window into the autistic experience. The perspective of the book's one non-autistic author gives an excellent example of how to effectively look past assumptions, respond with empathy and respect, and find real understanding, communication, and common ground with autistic individuals. If Dora had to pick just one book on autism for anyone to read, this would be it.

3. Realizing the College Dream with Autism or Asperger Syndrome: A Parent's Guide to Success (2005)
Ann Palmer

While this book has the word "college" in the title, it includes an enormous amount of practical information for how to work with primary and secondary schools, special education, classroom integration, and considerations of employment and community inclusion, from a mom who has a great balance of both positive and practical attitudes toward parenting an autistic child into adulthood. It's also useful for individuals on the autistic spectrum to get ideas about how to better understand and advocate for their own needs in education.

4. Songs of the Gorilla Nation (2005)
Dawn Prince-Hughes

Presenting a different sort of life experience from the authors in Dora's pick #2, Dawn Prince-Hughes' autobiography gives the perspective of an individual who has some spoken communication and was not diagnosed on the spectrum until adulthood. Prince-Hughes relates that experience with such a powerful and poetic voice that she's worth reading simply for the beauty of her words.

5. autistics.org Autism Information Library

The autistics.org library is a collection of essays by a diverse collection of individuals on the autistic spectrum and a few non-autistic allies. The theme of the essays is social justice, advocacy, and human rights. The scope of the essays encompasses social critique, self-understanding and self-help, threats to survival, self advocacy, and many other topics. These essays may represent a perspective on autism and self advocacy others are not used to seeing. Warning: This site contains some very political writing, and situations and ideas that may make some people uncomfortable.

Kristina's Picks

1. Exiting Nirvana: A Daughter's Life with Autism (2002).

Clara Claiborne Park, author of one of the first parent memoirs about raising an autistic child (The Siege, 1967), recounts her daughter Jessy's life and development as a painter. Park's account of Jessy's systems of "flavor tubes," clouds, open and shut doors, and more have been especially helpful to Kristina in understanding her son Charlie's own ways of creating order and patterns in the world.

2. The Mind Tree: A Miraculous Child Breaks the Silence of Autism (2003)
Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay writes about his early life in India, his instruction by his mother, Soma, and how he started writing narratives to explain his disordered sensations and difficulties coordinating his mind and body. Poetry rich in sensory detail and imagery is interspersed.

3. Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism (2007)

Anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker recounts how cultural and historical factors have shaped our contemporary understanding of autism and also looks at autism in South Korea, India, and South Africa. He argues that the recent, higher, more accurate statistics on autism are a "sign that we are finally seeing and appreciating a kind of human difference that we once turned away from and that many other cultures still hide away in homes or institutions or denigrate as bizarre." The author also from her babyhood to her diagnosis to her entrance into public school at the age of six, to her as the animal-loving, cello-playing, young woman she is today.

4. Girls of Tender Age: A Memoir (2007)

Mary-Ann Tirone-Smith recalls her childhood in post-World War II Hartford, Connecticut, in an Italian-French Catholic family of "Working Stiffs." Her older brother, Tyler, was considered "retarded" or "crazy": Extremely sensitive to any noise, he was also thoroughly knowledgeable about World War II military history; only later does the author learn that Tyler was autistic. Intertwined with Tirone-Smith's autobiography is an account of a lurking serial killer and rapist who murders one of her fifth-grade classmates, Irene Fiederowicz.

5. The Autism Hub

This is a network of blogs by autistic adults and by parents of autistic children. Created by Kevin Leitch---who blogs ardently about science and autism research and much more at Left Brain/Right Brain ----the hub offers a wide variety of perspectives and experiences, from Kathleen Seidel's Neurodiversity blog (essential reading to find about vaccine litigation and all aspects of autism quackery) to Asperger Square 8 by Bev Harp, Drive Mom Crazy by Jason Ross, Ballastexistenz by Amanda Baggs and NTs Are Weird by Joel Smith. On the Hub, too, you'll find blog by parents that chronicle the day-by-day (like Whitterer on Autism by Madeline McEwen-Asker) and that remind you about why we need to take action for autism.