It’s about love and fealty, fear, hope, the release from burdens, and what kids - all kids - need but often don’t get.Īs in all the best fiction, Martin’s plot throws the reader into confusion right beside the characters.
The deftness with which Martin renders Rose’s life is admirable - from the special-needs aide who sits by her side in class and pulls her into the hall for timeouts, to the classmates who manage only glancing, often comical interactions with the math whiz who blurts out rules (when others break them) and recites prime numbers to restore her balance.Īnd yet the book isn’t actually about autism, or even any coming-of-age theme. She’s lonely but unable to connect with peers - a tough, underrecognized truth for many kids on the autism spectrum. The damp, shaking animal, whom Rose names Rain, blossoms under her loving care, becoming the face-licking soul mate to a child who has not a single friend.
Father and daughter, of course, are strays as well, and what unfolds is a kind of modern-day fable, dealing with some of the thorniest problems that cripple society and those who live on its well-worn edges. She’s my gift to you.” The child never gets gifts from her often drunken father, who has cared for her in dispiriting penury since her mother left them long ago. When Rose asks if the dog is “a gift” her father answers: “Yes, she’s a gift, Rose. A rule-follower like many kids on the spectrum, Rose asks if they should look for the owners her father responds, “If they didn’t care enough to get her a collar then they don’t deserve her.” She lives in upstate New York with her volatile, intermittently employed father, has a kind uncle who drives her to school, and loves that “the word ‘pair’ implies two but is part of a homonym trio - pair, pear and pare.” The plot takes off as Rose’s father says they can keep a collarless dog he found in a downpour. The narrator, a fifth grader named Rose, has a passion for the homonym - a word that sounds just like another word (it’s right there in the rather clunky title). Though I’m not sure age subcategories are pertinent. Martin, a Newbery Honor winner, offers this affecting, elegantly burnished middle-grade book about a girl with autism. What might be called “autism lit” has evolved, as well, with novels and nonfiction showcasing autism’s piquant and painful weave of deep weaknesses and subtle, splintered strengths. Those who don’t can watch Sheldon’s autistic-like behaviors on CBS’s “The Big Bang Theory.” Who doesn’t now know that this condition is framed by a wide spectrum, or that diagnosed cases continue to rise? With one in 68 children affected, tens of millions in the United States know someone, or of someone, on the spectrum. Autism has come of age, rapidly growing into a matter of common knowledge.
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