Curling up with a good book

It was a long weekend. The internet server was out. Husband was working. The weather wasn’t great.

So, I read books. All the excuse I needed.

My mom had given me a few that she had recently finished. One Jodi Picoult. One Patricia Cornwell.

I love the Kay Scarpetta series. I had high hopes for this newest one, Red Mist. It’s a thick book, I figured it would last me a while. Time to savor. But it was just an okay book. Nothing special.

I usually am not a Picoult fan. I had read  Sister’s Keeper some time ago. I loved the character of the attorney in that one. Of course, that role was substantially compromised in the movie version.

So I wasn’t expecting much except to spend some time with it.

This one is House Rules. It has a fascinating main character who is diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. I work with a lot of kids who have this diagnosis. I have to say, that I think that she really got this right.

In case you aren’t familiar with it, Asperger’s is (until very recently) a diagnosis that is essentially a very high-functioning autism. This means that the person can be very intelligent, but has few social skills. These folks may be able to memorize paragraphs of information within just a few minutes, but don’t truly understand what any of it means. They usually have few friends. They don’t understand emotions, can’t read emotions in others, and don’t show emotions themselves. Rules are very important, words are taken quite literally.  It may be difficult to filter out background noises and sights that we take for granted.  Sometimes there is a physical meltdown which might be violent, if the sights and sounds of the world become overwhelming.

In reading this book, I began to see the world as a person with Asperger’s might see it. I began to understand the way such a person might think. It was amazing. The author was truly inside the head of an individual who sees the world in a way that most people don’t understand.

It has given me much insight into the kids who I work with each day. It made me wonder if Ms. Picoult has personal experience with someone who deals with Asperger’s.I hope that more teachers, police and parents read this to understand some of the kids who are in the court/mental health system.

Yup, I’d recommend this one highly.

By the end of the weekend, I was exhausted!

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