Kristy and the Secret of Susan

I loved the fact that a mainstay book series has an entire book about Autism and I applaud them. The problem is that it is so dated as can be seen by their own intro "Kristy believes that the autistic child she sits for is normal enough to attend special ed classes at school. After a while though she realizes that Susan would be better off with children like herself." I could see some young girls with siblings with Autism enjoying this book- but I would love to see it updated with the realities of Autism today.

*may contain spoilers*

One of my favorite BSC books ever, this one taught me a lot. Edited to add:

I just reread this book, after having lost it for years, and I'm really not at all surprised by how much it still touched me. This is a WONDERFUL book about a little autistic girl who Kristy gets attached to. The BSC members have never dealt with anything like this before, so it's very challenging, and very frustrating, for Kristy... She is a very take-charge person, and to not really be able to help Susan really puts her in a hard situation. She tries very hard to show Susan's parents that Susan is much more then just autistic, she's very special and deserves to be treated nice and to stay at home with her parents instead of at a boarding show more school... But as time goes on, even Kristy has to admit that maybe Susan really is too far gone in her own little world to be reached. It is really a very sad book, but a very very good and powerful one too. show less

It's hard to not appreciate Kristy's genuine effort to help Susan in this, although she also gets a dose of reality. Overall a good book in the BSC series.

This one is probably mine. I probably read it in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The book. Not autism. Not Asperger's? Let me tell you what Asperger's syndrome is: "I'm not saying that I'm autistic or that I'm them, but I just don't want them to get mistreated by or to have their money stolen by people with anxiety or schizophrenia." I'm trying to be a defendant for Asperger's syndrome first before we find out if I am antsy enough to have autism because I might need to be restrained in a straitjacket.

People who see through me can help me fix up my bathroom, clean up my bathroom, get me stuff for my bathroom, help me poop and pee, help me work out, just like I am going to help British people, real English people from England solve show more mysteries. If you're Ann M. Martin. She was like his mom, but she wasn't his mom. That wasn't me. But if I am him then I would love to learn how to write from her. So if some men, Mexicans, come over to my house because they are bored with nothing to do, it's probably to fix my shower! There are enough rednecks in the south! Because that's going to make me a redneck! That's what rednecks are! And we're trying not to create more of them. That's what those Spanish people are. They're good. They can see through us. show less

00002426