No, David Before Be Five Be Four

For Fours - Part Four
I never dared read my boy No, David. I thought he'd mistake it 
for a how to book. Now in double digits, he still climbs and destroys furniture and fixtures. Not often, he's not destructive, 
just a boy with little sense of his body's boundaries who 
sometimes really wants something that's out of reach. 
He's read No, David on his own. It's not like there's anything new for him in the story of a boy wreaking havoc through
the house as his mother chides "No."  But I digress.
J likes No, David as he likes those other picture books of young beings being young. As a four year old you hear "No" from 
somebody. J has a great mom, but I'm sure she has to say "No" sometimes.
I'm not sure whether J's autism affects how he thinks about the 
"No" he hears and the "No" David hears in the book. At one level,
the repetition is just funny. And if the kid identifies the "no" behavior, helpful ("uh oh .  .   .").  Unless you're as 
hyper-cautious as I was about giving bad examples, No, David works on enough levels to appeal to most children.
Like the other books I've discussed in this series, the end message 
is reconciliation. The message I knew I wanted to give my
children even before they were born:
"Yes. I love you."
-Spectrum Mom