The Spectrum of Autism Fiction

On the School Library Journal website, novelist Suzanne Crowley wrote about recent children's books on autism and the related spectrum of conditions. Is it fair to consider that the “current cool disability”?

Certainly there's been a spate of novels for young people touching on autism and Asperger syndrome in various ways: through the protagonist, or through a relative or friend. In addition to her own The Very Ordered Existence of Merilee Marvelous, Crowley mentioned:

• Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
• Cynthia Lord’s Rules.
• Nora Raleigh Baskin’s Anything but Typical.
• Francisco X. Stork’s Marcelo in The Real World.
• Kathryn Erskine's upcoming Mockingbird.

And she could have added:

• Siobhan Dowd's The London Eye Mystery, the most recent Cybils winner for middle-grade fiction.
• Diane Duane's A Wizard Alone, a late sequel to So You Want to Be a Wizard.
• Kochka's The Boy Who Ate Stars.
• Celia Rees's Truth or Dare.
• Caroline Lawrence's The Charioteer of Delphi, part of her Roman Mysteries series.
• [ADDENDUM: Gennifer Choldenko's Al Capone Does My Shirts and Al Capone Shines My Shoes.]
• [ADDENDUM: Lauren Tarshis's Emma Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree and Emma Jean Lazarus Fell in Love.]
• [ADDENDUM: Delia Sherman's Changeling.]

As usual, small specialty presses were early to put out such titles:

• Alexandra Eden's "The Bones and the Duchess" mysteries from Knoll Publishers, including To Oz and Back.
• Kathy Hoopmann's "Asperger Adventures" series, starting with Blue Bottle Mystery, from the neurology publisher Jessica Kingsley. These books appear to cross fantasy genres: one tale of magical wish fulfillment, one of science fiction, and one of time travel.

All those novels were published in the last decade, when understanding and diagnoses of the autistic disorders became much more common. However, I suspect we can push back the advent of autism/Aspergers children's fiction, though the portrayals might not be so acute as they are now.

People with autism conditions used to be considered mentally retarded. I met some among the special-education classmates of my older brother, Al, who had Down syndrome. Only lately have the cognitive and behavioral aspects of the pervasive developmental disorders been considered separately.

Thus Rules, about a twelve-year-old girl with an autistic younger brother, has an antecedent in Betsy Byars's Summer of the Swans, which won the Newbery Medal in 1971. In that book, fourteen-year-old Sara has a younger brother Charlie, who is considered retarded. Today some people are instead interpreting the book as a depiction of a child with borderline autism.

COMING UP: Autism/Asperger’s in mysteries and fantasies.