I’m back with another review of the School Daze series. This time, the third book, AUTISM BELONGS.
You can support my autism-related ramblings and reviews on Patreon for as little as $1 a month, and right now you'll get access to some behind the scenes stuff on my upcoming video essays (the first of which will be on Reginald Barclay, Sherlock Holmes, and Accidentally Autistic Characters, with the second being on Why Social Skills Training is Bullsh*t).
Script below the cut.
Back into the School Daze series, is the third book a return to form for the series?
-Intro-
Spoilers: Yes, but let’s see why.
Overall Opinion
**** - As always, the book was a generally enjoyable read.
Clarity of Autism
***** - As always, the characters’ autism is stated in the text.
Stereotype or Person
***** - So, this book, as with the other two, introduces a new autistic character to the neighbourhood. Manny is from a Latinx family - though there’s no specificity here, all you know is that they’re Spanish-speaking immigrants and his mother makes churros sometimes. Idk, they could be, like, Spanish, but the book is set in the US, so I guess Latinx is more likely.
In case my accent doesn’t make it clear, I’m British. Spanish + churros would normally mean Spain to me. But again, the book’s set in the US, so I’m gonna assume Latinx.
Side note: There’s stuff with his family and, like, the enforcement of traditional gender roles in immigrant families and stuff that someone who is way more qualified than me should be commenting on. I’m just here for the autism. But I feel like I should at least mention that it is something touched upon in the book.
So, why does this book get five stars for not relying too heavily on stereotypes? Well, Manny meets up with Jeff and Kyle, meaning that we now have a pretty solid look across the spectrum. Not complete, but enough to reinforce the idea that autism looks different in kids of a similar age, in a way that was lacking in the first book with just Kyle and Jeff. And the fact that Manny is from a working class, Latinx family also works against the middle-class white boy stereotype.
But wait, I hear you say. Didn’t Ethan reinforce that same idea in the second book? You gave that book two stars for the Jeff Problem. Did this book solve that?
Eh, not entirely, but Jeff was much more of a background character, so his teachable moments weren’t as constant. Plus, when he was doing stuff, there was quite a bit of standing up for the kids, which was super relatable and made him more human.
You might also notice that I didn’t mention Ethan being in this book. That’s because he wasn’t. And he also wasn’t mentioned, which after the end of the last book…
#IsEthanOkay2k17
Accurate Autism
***** - Back to five stars for this one.
Again, what truly dragged down the second book was Jeff and a lack of nuance when it comes to how the expression of autistic traits change as autistic people grow into adults. But in this book, he goes back to the background and Manny is allowed to the foreground.
As with Kyle, Manny’s story revolves around his parents misunderstanding his attempts at communication or them simply not having the tools and knowledge to communicate with him in a way that works for him. As the book goes on, they meet the characters from the previous books and they get that help and support. As with the first book, it’s clearly evident that the author knows what she’s talking about when it comes to autistic children.
Storylines
**** - The autistic characters have story and plot, but it primary revolves around their autism.
As I said with the first book, that’s fine. That is what these books are about, after all. It would be nice to see them branch out, but the parents are the main characters, so it’s understandable that they don’t.
It’s worth noting that this book really hammered home the problems of the second book. As I said in my review of AUTISM RUNS AWAY, all of the attempts to get Ethan’s mother to relax and start supporting her son kind of fall flat, and before she makes any real progress, Ethan runs away and gets hit by a car, almost validating her viewpoint that her son was too much of a danger to himself for his teacher’s methods to work.
It was a total downer ending and lacked the hopefulness of the first book.
#IsEthanOkay2k17
I started to read the third book before I went on hiatus, and then I put it down quite quickly. When I went to read it again once I was back, I started from the beginning and quickly remembered why I had put it down so quickly.
Manny starts in a bad place, and after the downer of Ethan’s ending, I wasn’t ready to subject myself to that kind of downer message again.
But this time I pushed through the beginning, when Manny has destructive meltdowns that often hurt those around him. And then I got to the parts where the characters from the previous books helped Manny’s parents to figure out how to reduce the number of meltdowns he had through better communication and allowing their son to have a normal life.
Where the second book ended on a downer note, this one ended on a hopeful one. I don’t need to ask if Manny is going to be okay. He’s in pretty good hands.
Now, side note, I’m going to contradict myself and say that if anything, there was a touch too much positivity, but that’s not to do with Manny’s circumstances, but the fact that this book is sending a message to parents.
A common line throughout the book is other characters asking Manny’s parents why Manny’s not in school, and they come back with perfectly reasonable fears.
Except in this circumstance, their fears are unfounded because the local school is so great with disabled kids.
I do think that it is important to appreciate that these kinds of schools are rare. There’s an optimism to the way kids behave and treat each other, and that can be very true in the right environment. I would argue that it’s not in the majority of environments, and I think for a lot of disabled kids, while it’s not easy for parents to do, homeschooling can still often be the best route to take. Hell, for able-bodied, neurotypical kids, homeschooling may have a bad reputation for making kids socially isolated and unprepared for the adult world, but studies have shown that the opposite is actually true and that homeschooled kids tend to lack the trauma that most schools still inflict.
Idk, maybe I just went to really shitty schools up until sixth form, but my middle and high schools were regarded as the best high school in the city, so…
Maybe that’s just living in Newcastle… *insert Geordie Shore clip*
Respect
***** - While this book still has the problem of the second, where autistic characters were shown conscious and deliberate respect, but not really given it by the narrative through having stories of their own, the fact that the characters are in more secondary roles, like in the first book, makes that easy enough to forgive. After all, allistic characters in similarly secondary roles got the same amount of character development, so it’s not a huge issue.
This book also dropped both Asperger’s and functioning labels. I tend not be too lenient on stuff for being written in the past, because the point of these reviews are to educate allistic people and to warn/recommend stuff to other autistic people, but it does occur to me that this change probably coincides with the release of the DSM V, which makes previous uses slightly more forgivable. Not that the autistic community didn’t object to these things before the DSM V came out - where do you think the changes came from? - but it’s a more understandable oversight that’s righted in this book.
Overall, that brings AUTISM BELONGS to a near-miss 4.5 stars. It would have been nice to see an autistic character have a storyline outside of their autism, but other than that, it’s a solid book. The only question now is if the second book was a one-time misstep, or if, like the Star Trek films, you’ll be able to identify the good ones based on their divisibility by two. I guess we’ll find out two weeks from now when I review AUTISM TALKS AND TALKS. In the meantime, however, I have some things to say about the overuse of mentally ill villains. See you next week!
