After three years of writing, re-writing, imagining art with Heming and marrying text with illustrations in the best way we could, Different! Awesome! A Neurodiversity-Affirming Introduction to Autism is ready to share with the world! We couldn’t be more proud. Our first copies sold last weekend, and it was the best feeling.
Like we are prone to notice this time of year, time flies. The last three years have been full of ups and downs, starts and stops. When we embarked on this project, Kiddo was in pre-school, fresh off his evaluation and diagnosis. I wrote the first draft of Different! Awesome! on a November afternoon after another disappointing visit to our local library. In addition to learning as much as I could about autism, I wanted to make sure Kiddo had opportunities to learn as well. But what I found was largely sad and deficits-based. In other words, not neurodiversity-affirming. But I didn’t know that term yet; I just knew that the books we were finding out there didn’t feel right. So I decided to create the book we needed.
With help from Porsche and APX, Heming and I were able to realize the dream of our book. We’re so very grateful for their support and confidence in us as a team. Porsche described their support of our project as being “Driven by Dreams,” which is as perfect as you can get. This book started as a dream. This book has two main goals:
- For autistic kids: a story they can recognize and see themselves in, where their difference is framed in a more positive, matter-of-fact way.
- For people who don’t know much about autism: a way to learn about it that’s based on a kid’s lived experience, instead of descriptions based on a medical model of autism (which are largely negative).
I hope you’ll check it out and share it with people you care about. You’ll help us spread a message of love and acceptance for all kids who struggle to navigate systems and societies not designed for them. The world needs all brains – let’s make room for them to flourish.