That said, it’s not all bad. There are a lot of things that inspire me about them. Their seemingly endless energy for social justice and righting the wrongs in the world. I know a lot of people sneer at the trend of a young adult being the ‘chosen one’ in all dystopian novels but let’s be honest; between them and me, they have the energy for it. Another thing is how accepting they are of their classmates and peers who are neurodiverse. As a mother of a child with ASD, this is something that hits home. I think we can all make the statement that, regardless of the generation one may come from, one sentiment rings true; and that is that kids can be cruel. So, the thought of him moving on to middle school was scary. This is especially true for anyone that is in any way different. But this generation seems to be more receptive and understanding of those children who are neurodiverse. Now, of course this isn’t an across the board and there are some outliers. We have had incidents with my own child here and there growing up. But, by and large, it’s nowhere near as many as there would have been during my formative years. A large part of that is due to how far we’ve come in terms of understanding neurodiversity over time. In the past, the approach to children like this was a blanket one. Now we know that it is a spectrum, hence the name. And, as with anything else, a good way to start this type of acceptance is at preschool or school age with books. It’s at this age that children are more receptive to learning new things. And we have to work on teaching acceptance, of all kinds, if we want the world and society to survive. Below you’ll find just a handful of the wonderful options there to help let your child know about people who may not be neurotypical and how to interact with them. This is just a small sampling of the available books out there that embrace neurodiversity. I hope that you find some old favorites or new books here to introduce to your library. Let us know over on social media which ones you enjoyed and let us know any that we missed. Until we meet again, happy reading!
