Dylan’s Story, and those to come in the Someone Like Me Series, are stories told from the inside. Dylan is based on our son, who was seven when I wrote the book. His experiences, and in many cases actual words, are used in the story, as well as some of his contemporaries and family members.
As our son was growing up, and we were looking for resources to explain his diagnosis to him, we found that books were largely written from the outside, from the perspective of what the author imagined autism to be. They were often rather plain and cheaply produced, and very “factual.”
As a parent I latched on eagerly to the incredible “The Reason I Jump,” where Naoki Higashida tells us about his experience of the world as a nonverbal autistic from Japan. Also, the funny and heartwarming “Freaks, Geeks and Asperger Syndrome,” by the teenager Luke Jackson. These books resonated with me and helped me to understand things from my son’s perspective.
However, these were not particularly helpful for our son. He needed to hear from a child who was going through the same experiences as him at 7ish – struggling to understand his diagnosis, having meltdowns, sensory challenges, and also wanting to make friends and friends like him, who would help him make sense of his world. And he deserved a book that was every bit as colourful, glossy and dynamic as all the other books aimed at neurotypical children out there. I wanted it to be fun, truthful, honest, full of amazing discoveries and other autistic people to inspire him and friends to identify with. A book written from the inside.
I hope that other parents and children, as well as professionals, will find it helpful, and have as much fun telling their own stories.
