CultureWatch: An Asperger's Puzzle, A Fine New Short Story Author and a Lady Spy Thrills
In This Issue
Asperger’s is a puzzling condition, and Nilla Childs has framed Puzzled: 100 pieces of Autism in what she terms the 8 steps to completing a jigsaw puzzle. She has also learned how to give up "what does not work." Megan Bergman’s fine, fine collection of short stories, Birds of a Lesser Paradise, have both moral profundity and light-hearted humor. If you're looking for the next big page-turner, you've found it in The Expats. Chris Pavone is a dab hand at both mayhem and domesticity, something unusual in the business of flash-and-dash spy novels.
PUZZLED: 100 pieces of Autism
by Nilla Childs, © 2012
Paperback; 296 pp – available on Amazon.com
I’ve never before reviewed a book by a friend, but in the interests of full disclosure, Nilla Childs is a neighbor of mine. I am breaking my self-imposed “no books by friends” rule because it seems to me that this brave and honest little book deserves to be put out into the world where it can possibly be of help to other families who are struggling to understand children and grandchildren, who seem somehow “different.”
Nilla Childs is the wife of an accomplished artist, and mother of two bright sons. The eldest of the boys was diagnosed at age 25 as having High-Functioning Asperger Syndrome, a form of autism that was identified only toward the end of the 20th century. It is characterized by a person’s difficulty with social interactions despite (usually) average or above average intelligence. It can manifest itself as inappropriate verbal responses or difficulty in expressing oneself, among other things.
The book is a recounting of the parents’ long search for a diagnosis of their son Daniel’s difficulties, and their determined efforts to help him to an independent adulthood.
Asperger’s is a puzzling condition, and Ms. Childs has framed her book in what she terms the eight steps to completing a jigsaw puzzle, beginning at step one: “Taking the Pieces Out of the Box.” In other circumstances, this arbitrary framework might seem simplistic or overly restrictive. Here, in the author’s capable hands, it makes perfect sense.
Other forms of autism usually show up very early in life. Daniel’s, however, appears to have developed slowly, peaking in his late teens and early twenties. The first years of school seemed very easy for him, perhaps because those first three years are heavily focused on learning to read — a skill Daniel had well in hand by about age 3. He was also well-coordinated, good with ball handling at a young age, and demonstrated a remarkable memory for events that had happened at a very early age, even years later.
The Childs family has an interesting dynamic, right off the bat: mother is the descendant of New Englanders, and father is a Southerner, from Georgia. Nilla, a doctor’s daughter, grew up as a highly intelligent child of privilege, attending excellent private schools, and when she graduated from high school, was accepted to Mt. Holyoke College. Although Steve is also very bright, he had a struggle in learning to read; he loved sports and was gifted in art (he is today an accomplished painter and portraitist). Although they came from different worlds, they fell in love at a young age, and Nilla left Mt. Holyoke after one year, to transfer to Emory University in Atlanta in order to be near Steve. As she emphasizes in her book, they have found that although their respective childhoods were very different, they quickly discovered that there was much that they share: moral values, political and spiritual beliefs, aesthetic tastes, a love of animals and the great outdoors.
It is evident that they also share a deep love for their boys, the kind of love that will go to any lengths to help them as they mature. They have surrounded their sons with their values and beliefs, not so much by talk as by doing: school, church, camping, the extended family, friends, pets, art and literature have filled their lives.
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