The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,200 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 53 trips to carry that many people.
Bad Animals by Joel Yanofsky
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I enjoyed this book written by the father of a son diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.
Joel is honest about his love, his angst, his sense of being in over his head in dealing with the demands of being the parent of a special needs child. He whines, sure, but he owns his whining.
In the book he is writing with his son he names the father character Worst-Daddy-Ever. But he is not the worst daddy ever, he is just a human being dealing with a tough situation and seeking an outlet for his worries and frustrations. In a moving moment his son rebels against the Worst-Daddy-Ever name, showing a very deep love for his father in his own way.
We’ve made some progress understanding and dealing with the autism spectrum in the last few decades, although really it hasn’t provided much in terms of answers or solutions. Joel’s book reflects that well, since he is a book reviewer by trade, and takes the time to let us know how he feels about the very well-known auto/biographies about autism that have been written in the last 40 years or so.
Joel himself admits that if you are looking for encouragement and a path to succeeding as a parent of a special needs child this is not the book. He’s not touchy-feely, nor overjoyed by the “gift of being choosen”. He’s sad, angry, and worried. He mourns what they lost when the diagnosis was rendered; but he loves his son very much.
You’ll love his son after reading this book as well. Because really, that’s what this book is about. The love of a father for his son, no matter what challenges they’ll have to face.
I’m not sure even Joel knew that’s what he was writing at the time. And that’s what makes it so authentic.
Seeing Voices by Oliver Sacks
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I am a huge fan of Dr. Sacks. When you ask me who I would most like to meet if I could meet anyone on this planet, well, Dr. Sacks makes the top 3.
This is the only book of his that I’ve had trouble with, and it was only because I spent 17 years as an educator of young hearing-impaired children. I believe strongly in teaching deaf kids to talk. There are very few children, regardless of their level of deafness, who can’t learn to communicate in this way.
Unfortunately, Dr. Sacks, in his beautiful empathetic way, seemed to me to fall under the spell of the deaf community advocates who feel teaching deaf kids to talk is akin to abuse.
This continued to sadden and frustrate me throughout the book, which dampened my enjoyment.
Regardless of this, I hold Dr. Sacks in high esteem. I just wish he’d come to my school and see my students. Listen to my students. He would find joy in the experience. Especially when they raise their voices in song, proving that music and voice is a gift they relish.
As I See It 