Review: Louder Than Words by Laura Jarratt
Although I can’t recommend it wholeheartedly, Louder Than Words features a well researched, realistic portrayal of progressive mutism.
Although I can’t recommend it wholeheartedly, Louder Than Words features a well researched, realistic portrayal of progressive mutism.
I wish this book, featuring a girl newly diagnosed with Crohn’s, had existed when I was a teenager—my recurring thought throughout was, “Oh my god, someone wrote a book for me!”
I could criticize the focus on “fixing” and of the correlation between unwantedness and disability, but the book is focused on unwantedness in a broader fashion; Ava is as challenged by her circumstances as she is by her clubfoot.
In the time since I first read Wonder, my understanding of my disfigurement, and the world it occupies, has transformed. How will I now read and receive what was the most personally representative book of my life?
A one-armed astronaut superhero is the lead in Dangerous, the unusual new novel by NYT bestselling and Newbery Honor-winning author Shannon Hale, who sat down with us for a great interview.
After the first two books in Jackie Morse Kessler’s Riders of the Apocalypse series—Hunger, about a girl with anorexia, and Rage, about a girl with depression—were so positively reviewed on the blog, we were incredibly excited to invite the author over for a joint interview.
Pete’s autism is portrayed over and over again as being non-stop pain and suffering. That got incredibly hard to read; do people really think this is what autism is like?
The story suggests that Kira’s talents as a threader make up for her disability, justifying her continued survival–with the disturbing implication that without it, she would be worthless.
This is a book about a girl with an autistic brother. The autistic brother is crucial to the plot, but her actual brother is really more of a plot device than anything else.
Hanna is a character with bipolar disorder; she’s not “bipolar disorder, the walking human diagnosis.” I think people who share the disease will find something soothing in seeing someone who both manages and mismanages her illness realistically.