Now this a meme I can get behind. From Campaign for the American Reader's "How to choose a novel":
Here's page 69 from the current book I'm reading, "Look Me In the Eye: My Life With Asperger's" from John Elder Robison:
"Any child will tell you that even the kindest and gentlest of dogs will bite if you yank its ears and pull its tail long enough. There is a dark side to Asperger's, and it comes from our childhood dealings with people who do not treat us the way they would like to be treated. As I grew older, it seemed as though there were very few people who made me feel loved. Little Bear was one of them. My father's parents also stuck by me. I used to visit them every summer in Georgia. They lived in Lawrenceville, a small town about an hour outside Atlanta.
In my thirteenth summer, my grandparents picked me up at the airport, the way they always did. My grandmother Carolyn was the first person I saw when I walked off the plane. She ran up and grabbed me and I squirmed away. I was getting a little big to be grabbed.
"Ooooooooooh. John Elder! Look at you! You've grown so big! You are so handsome!"
I squirmed some more, but I really liked the way they were always so proud of me and so glad to see me. No one else was.
"Your uncle Bob is coming up this weekend and he said he was taking you driving! Ooooooooh lordy, my baby boy driving a car!"
[Truncated for incomplete sentence.]
If you have a chance to pick it up, the novel is a great look into the Aspergian mindset and a really touching memoir. Definitely a must read.
Look Me In The Eye: My Life With Asperger's [Amazon]
hmmm, duly noted.
Said by rpcjr — 01/19/2008 @ 4:35 pm