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Saturday, March 28, 2015

With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child (REVIEW)

With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child Volume 1 
by Keiko Tobe

Review


I came across this manga on Goodreads and for personal reasons I thought it sounded interesting.  I didn't really want to spend the money to purchase it so I was delighted when I found out that my local library had the entire series. I don't know why I found this so surprising but I did :-).

This manga is about a mother and father that find out their son is autistic. They struggle with many family issues as well as how to bring their autistic son up in normal society. Simply living daily life is a hardship for this family and they have to work many times harder than families with normal children just to get through a school day. This book deals with the difficulties families with autistic children face as well as the prejudice that comes along with the diagnosis.

I have recently really gotten hooked on Shoujo manga and anime so it was a nice change of pace to pick up a manga about real human problems. I was interested in this particular book due to the fact that I have Aspergers. I obviously know a lot from experience about high functioning autism but I wanted to know more about the other side of the spectrum. I assumed that I would share some similarities with fully autistic individuals but I wasn't sure to what extent. 

After reading this manga I feel that the gap in my mind has been bridged a little between the high and lower functioning ends of the autistic spectrum. I found out that people with Aspergers have many things in common like repetitive behaviors, a rigid sense of structure, a obsessive interest in certain things, and more. I also found out though that there are many differences. For example, people with Aspergers usually do not have a delay in speech and are at the same cognitive level of their peers or possibly at a higher level. We do however usually have a very hard time interacting with people in a socially acceptable manor. Many people with autism however may have trouble speaking or communicating. 

Reading this manga made me feel incredibly sad for those with autism as well as for their parents and caregivers. I can't imagine how damaging it would be to have a  disability in which a  person could not talk or function at a normal level. I also know that I would simply not have the patience to deal with the type of person that is described in this book. That makes me sad while I also feel ashamed of myself in some way for not having more empathy towards a group of people that are in fact very similar to myself. I think it is great though that there are people in the world that are able to educate and support the autistic community and are able to interact in such a kind manner. 

I would really recommend this book to anyone either interested in manga or in autism. It is extremely well thought out and explained, the graphics are wonderful, and it gives a ton of useful information about autism. 


Have a great day bookworms! 

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