Making Lemonade: Hints for Autism's Helpers
This collection is a beautiful and complex expression of what it is to know autism from the inside out. These poems are more than moving, they are instructive and teach much about how to support, listen, and appreciate. Making Lemonade will help families, educators, and others who support people with this label understand the challenges, difficulties, wonder, and uniqueness that is autism. --Paula Kluth, Ph.D., author of 'You're Going to Love This Kid!'Throughout human history the really important stuff of life has not found its place in prose, in ordinary discourse. Art and music and poetry have helped bridge the gap. Yet, people who live with significant differences have seldom been allowed to sing their song or share their art except in a limited space called 'special' meaning 'other.' Judy Endow has given us a book from her heart and from her experience that is truly extraordinary. Her beautiful poetry lets us join her in her unique life journey and wonder from whence she drew the strength and the courage to keep from letting her autism define her and her life. And with her words she offers a way to redefine autism and those who have been burdened with labels and places of otherness to see them as one with us. Read this book. It's wonderful. --Anne M. Donnellan, Professor, School of Leadership and Education Sciences, University of San Diego.Autism has many faces and 'ARTism' is surely one of them. Judy Endow captures the fluid world of the autistic person with 'artism,' so naturally compelled by a world of pattern, theme and feel. This natural alternative 'normality' is one of the most misunderstood 'functionally non-verbal' worlds of cognitively different people. Judy playfully addresses her audience through a middle world where the language of 'artism' in those with autism can borrow the interpretive words of the mainstream world to build bridges and entice and invite them to respectfully do likewise. --Donna Williams, bestselling author of 'Nobody Nowhere.'