Following on from the popular article in our newsletter in Term 1 about choosing books with the right representation, School News is providing a list of some great chapter books and novels for children with neurodiverse characters.
Read the latest edition of School News HERE.
Autistic author Kate Foster encourages educators to include as many books as possible on school shelves: “It’s always worth remembering that no two ND people are the same, so the more books you and your class read that star ND characters, the more ND voices you listen to, the more valuable knowledge and understanding you’ll gain. And it’s not only the ND children who will benefit from this.”
Jamie Oliver, better known as the author of dozens of cookbooks, has recently released his first children’s chapter book, based on the stories he would tell his own children each night at bedtime. Oliver has severe dyslexia, and famously didn’t read his first novel until the age of 38. Billy’s Giant Adventure features a main character who struggles with reading and writing at school, something Oliver experienced firsthand, and can write about with authority and sensitivity.
Books are an excellent way for all people to learn about the lived experience of people with mental and health differences and to appreciate what might be going on inside the head of a neurodiverse person when usually all others can see is the outside behaviour.
“A lot of struggles ND people experience are invisible for most of the time and extremely hard for an ND person to describe or explain,” explains Kate Foster. “So, what most people see are the times when those experiences become too much and spill over in the shape of meltdowns and shutdowns. Understanding how life can be on a minute-to-minute basis for ND people through fictional characters preparing for a school production, hunting monsters, flying spaceships, and so on, allows others to share thought processes, feelings, discomfort, and confusion as they occur.”
Recommended by Kate Foster:
Bipolar
Recommended by Kate Foster:
Depression
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