Title: School Daze Series
Author: Dr. Sharon A. Mitchell
Major Themes: Autism
Synopsis: Various forms of autism are revealed in interesting stories, and techniques for helping autistic children are described.
For many years, I’ve been somewhat curious about what causes autism and if anything can be done to help those who have it, although I haven’t read very much on the topic. This year, then, a man stayed in our home for several months who has been diagnosed with autism. We all learned first-hand some of the challenges such a person faces. Soon after he moved on to another place, I ran across a few books that were being offered free, on the topic of autism, and downloaded them. They were books 1, 3 and 4 in the School Daze Series, which is a series of stories about people with autism and their families.
In book 1, Autism Goes to School, Ben is suddenly handed his five-year-old son, whom he had never even met. Kyle’s mother had decided that she could no longer care for the child, and Ben suddenly found himself forced to be a father. He discovered quickly that he was in over his head and had no idea how to care for the boy—especially since Kyle didn’t behave like most children. He was soon very thankful for a loving, concerned teacher who helped him learn how to parent the boy.
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Autism Belongs, book 3, features a Hispanic family whose nine-year-old son has never gone to school because he can’t talk. He is getting too large for his mother to handle when he flies into a rage, however, and both parents are afraid that Manny will someday kill her. The stress of caring for this child, and losing his job, are about too much for Tomas and his wife—and then they meet a caring couple at a local coffee shop. Is there really hope for someone like Manny?
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Autism Talks and Talks, book 4, is about yet another form of autism, one in which the person has no idea when to stop talking, or that they are turning other people off. Karen needs to learn how to have a back-and-forth conversation instead of rattling on and on and on. This book also features Jeff, an adult with autism who also appears in the other two books. I found some interesting insights into what we were dealing with in our home, here.
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I only recommend these books if you need/want to learn more about autism in an easy, memorable way. There is bad language sprinkled throughout all the books, so much that I couldn’t possibly note all of it. Also, the morals are not Christian. Twice, in the three books I read of the five in the series, unmarried couples move in with each other. I do feel like I learned a lot from them, but these are not the style of stories I’m comfortable with reading.
WARNING: Bad language and low morals, as mentioned in the last paragraph.
Age levels:
Reading Independently—Adults
Links to buy this series:
Amazon: Kindle (set of all 5)
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