Stand Up for Autism: A Boy, a Dog, and a Prescription for Laughter

Laughter may be the best medicine, but it cannot entirely carry this memoir about raising an autistic child. Derbyshire lives in a small town in the UK with her 10-year-old son, Bobby, "who is, in the nicest sense of the word, an oddity. Beautifully odd, annoyingly odd, amusingly odd and oddly odd." She describes his diagnosis at age five, his ongoing development, and eschews the hair-pulling many parents in her situation might engage in, focusing instead on the positive side. "I love him with all his oddities and foibles, and would not try to change him for anything. I love the curiosity that he is." Derbyshire shares humorous anecdotes, as in a chapter titled "Barking at Parents and Toddlers," and disastrous trips to the supermarket; "not my idea of fun" the author says (a runaway cart; an unsuspecting shopper in the produce aisle). She relays snippets of the amusing daily she has with her son and conveys her tale with deliberate lightness and wit, but her story lacks the emotional weight that readers drawn to the subject may expect. (June)