Throw Back Thursday

Throwback Thursday is a meme started by Taste Life Twice and is a post about a book that has been out for a while that deserves to be talked about again because yes, it was that good!

My Throw Back is:

 
Rules by Cynthia Lord
 
I read this book about two years ago and fell in love with it. I've now read it to my students twice.  It's about a middle school age girl who has a brother that is autistic.  She doesn't like when kids tease her brother, but she feels resentful of having to stand up for him and of all the attention he gets from her parents.  She meets a young man confined to a wheelchair, and he helps her see and cope with her feelings towards her brother. 
 
I have found it to be a great book for teaching my students about autism and being more accepting of people with disabilities. 
 
Here's the summary from Barnes and Noble
 
Twelve-year-old Catherine just wants a normal life. Which is near impossible when you have a brother with autism and a family that revolves around his disability. She's spent years trying to teach David the rules from "a peach is not a funny-looking apple" to "keep your pants on in public"---in order to head off David's embarrassing behaviors.

But the summer Catherine meets Jason, a surprising, new sort-of friend, and Kristi, the next-door friend she's always wished for, it's her own shocking behavior that turns everything upside down and forces her to ask: What is normal?