Hiatus

No cries of outrage or pleas for assistance followed last week's enforced break, so I'm taking a hiatus from the blog.
There are over two hundred entries here from alphabet books to young adult,
so I hope you can find what you need without me for a while.
If you do have an urgent request, don't be shy.
Comment or email me:
autismreads at gmail dot com.
I'll check in at least once a week, and if all goes well,
I should be back at the end of May.

Talk to Me

Gee, I didn't actually mean to post this yet.
The site went through a techno-crisis this 
week.
I won't go into the gory, boring details.
Let's put it this way: nothing is automatic.
Except, apparently, my auto-scheduling
of this post which I had abandoned to
try to fix the site problem. 

My mother recently asked me,
"Do people tell you how witty and enjoyable your blog is?"
Why no, Mother, no they don't.
And that's fine.
I love hearing compliments from my mother, but I certainly don't
expect the rest of you (who are probably looking here to
find some help for a wonderful child) to sing my praises.
I get enough of that from the spammers ("Your sight it is grate.
Please visit my diet date spot.")
What does make me feel a little cold and barren is the lack
of other experiences and reviews. I hoped that more people
would want to share their book finds and reading strategies.
I am very grateful to those who have, and I do understand
about not having the time to comment. I rarely do myself.
But remember you can comment. And there's an Autism
Reads Facebook page too if you prefer that. 
Anyway, I was sort of left wondering if anyone would even
notice if Autism Reads disppeared.
(Except for my Mother - love you always)
Happy Mother's Day to all you wonderful moms out
there - you care about reading, which makes you the best!
-Spectrum Mom
sorry for being a little blue today. It won't last.

Fly Guy

I almost feel the title of this post gives you all
the information you need. But perhaps you'd like the
author's name too?
Tedd Arnold
or, in book shelving order, 
Arnold, Tedd
There. My work is done.
You want more?
(sigh)
Okay, okay, I'm not getting paid for this you know .  .  .
The Fly Guy series is published by cartwheel books,
an imprint of Scholastic. The series consists of twelve titles
so far. The eponymous (look it up if needed) hero
is the winged pet/best friend of the brush cut boy,
Buzz.
Each thirty page book contains three chapters of an easy to read adventure. What makes them particularly appealing are the
full color illustrations, the large clear text, and the healthy
dose of comedy.
Two of these books won the Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Book
title, one of these was the very first, Hi! Fly Guy.
But you may read them out of order.

Disney Pixar Storybook

I've mentioned before that Disney stories may be
especially accessible for some of our children.
The stories often have familiar characters and
story lines, and they are bountifully illustrated
with familiar images.
The Disney Pixar Storybook Collection gathers
together twenty stories from twenty favorite 
movies. The cover features six of the movies,
others include The Incredibles and A Bug's Life.
Chances are, if your kid loves a Disney/Pixar
movie, it's in here.
The large print size, direct storytelling, and full
color illustrations should appeal to many 
youngsters with autism. But the placement of
illustrations is haphazard, often with no apparent
relationship between text and picture. That can
be a big problem for literal thinkers.
And. if your child is like mine, you may find him/her
squinting at the teeny tiny type on the page
following the table of contents where you can find
out who actually wrote these stories.
Still, kids who like the movie characters will enjoy
the look of this book. And it's sturdy, with silver
edged pages. It won't take as much abuse as a 
board book, but it should stand up to careless
handling.
Perhaps that's not important in your house.
It is in mine.
Wishing you good reading,
-Spectrum Mom

Read a Rhyme - Write a Review

I'm very busy, with other writing and other son, so I asked my older son

to write this review for me:

Read a Rhyme, Write a Rhyme had 10 poemstarts.

“Poemstart” means just the start of the poem.

Prelutsky puts in poemstarts to encourage kids to finish the poem. This has never

happened in my house. I guess I may have to assign one just for fun .  .  .

There was a picture for the poem “Eating Blueberries”.

There was a poem about a dog named Mutterly.

There is a poem about a person’s best friends who did something bad to the person.

There is a poem about a person who met a mayfly at the beginning of April.

The person also met a junebug near the end of July.

Okay, perhaps this is not the most informative review ever. But now you

know what one boy with autism remembered from the book. 

The book combines poems and ideas for writing poems in a bigger,

more inviting format than Prelutsky's Pizza, Pigs and Poetry 
that I featured earlier this month.

Read it and compare your impressions to my son's. 

Or get your kid to send me a review. Really. 

Storied Saturday ahead in Nashville!

Special Story Time 10:30 at Madison Branch!

Garden Tales with Rachel Sumner 10:30

at Cheekwood!

Leo Kennedy's book launch for Devin and the 

Greedy Ferret!

Read Aloud Rhymes

Endless homework assigned, and my boy on his bedroom floor 

reading Read Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young.

"Homework time."

"I'm busy reading."

"That book is too young for you. See, 'the very young.'

You're twelve."

"I'm reading the acknowledgments."

That response bought him ten more minutes.

Of course when I came back he was reading

the poems again.

There's a new edition. Published by Scholastic I think.

Edited by Children's Poet Laureate Jack Prelutsky.

What poems does your child love?

Talent Tuesday - My Boy's Poems

In between studying for the standardized state test,

the Language Arts teacher asked the kids to write

an ode and an elegy. With prompts and leading

questions, this is what my boy wrote.  I am proud of

him. All Rights Reserved. You want to quote his

work somewhere, ask me and I'll ask him.

Ode to the Stream

The stream feels watery,

watery, watery.

Usually the water feels cold as popsicles.

I put my feet in when it’s warm 

in the Summertime.

It’s warm as my comfy blanket.

The algae feels slippery,

slippery, slippery.

The rocks are hard and bumpy.

In the summertime, I feel them on my feet.

Rrsssh, rrsssh goes the water in the stream.

The tall green trees stand still and watch me play.

The stream is my special place.

I like to go there to make a rock go down. I balance on it with my feet.

Its where I like to go and do some special things,

like thinking, thinking, thinking. 

- Spectrum Son

Elegy

My grandad died.

I was sad.

I was sad as grey skies.

He used to call me rascal, and he used to say, “yes sir.”

One day he said, “Run like a deer.”

He was Mr. Wonderful.

When he was in his bedroom, he hugged the bed.

The way it looked made you like the way it felt.

He had a yard. 

A yard of green grass and brown dirt.

His yard had a stream. 

When the stream was all dry I walked through it and came to someone else’s yard.

I couldn’t get back to Grandad’s yard without going through trees. I felt a little scared.

I called to Dad. I wanted to go back to Grandad’s yard and into Grandad’s house. 

And so I did.

When he died his house got torn apart. 

We went to his funeral.

When he was buried his grave was near Aunt Carol’s house.

I think of his body under the ground.

White hair, white hair and how pink he was.

I’m hearing those teardrops, bloop, bloop, bloop.

When is the next time we’ll go to Aunt Carol’s house?

- Spectrum Son

Does your kid with autism write poems 

(with or without prompting)?

Want to share them? Send them to me and I'll do a Talent

Tuesday post. 

- Spectrum Mom

autismreads at gmail dot com