“Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.” So says the poet Rumi, one of the greatest scholars of myth and morality in human history. And as millions of parents and caregivers can tell you, this famous quote will never hold so true for […]
Autism Affinities Project – Quentin
Throughout the week, the logo-naming increased. He found them throughout my parents’ home, especially on their widescreen TV. He also started to spout logo names sporadically, without even seeing them. “Clorox,” he would say to me, with perfect eye contact, waiting for a response. “Clorox,” I would say. He would counter with, “Pringles,” again waiting for my response. “Pringles,” I would say. For Quentin, this is typical back-and-forth conversation. We could go several rounds of brand names before he got tired or distracted.
Autism Affinities Project – Gabriel
Since Frankenweenie, what I’ve called ‘film therapy’ has infiltrated every part of our lives – schooldays, weekends, evenings, car trips, holidays, meals, bath-time, swimming sessions and more. I started simply by asking 4 cinemas if they’d donate old film posters. 3 obliged and I got them laminated. We began by poring over them like treasure maps, revelling in Gabriel’s eye for detail (he’d spend minutes focusing on details that had passed me by) and with me animatedly commentating. Gabriel couldn’t talk, but his eyes could, and they lit up as I exclaimed – ‘Oooo, it’s a scary bat monster!’, or ‘Fish! Just keep swimming, Dory!’, or ‘Look out! Shaaaarrk!’, or ‘Bird! It’s a blue bird, Gabriel!’
Review from USA Today
“This is the book that readers who have no one in their lives affected by autism and who would otherwise never it pick up should definitely read. Eyes will tear. Hearts will cheer. In these pages, Owen is every reader’s son.” Read the review .
Review in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch offers up a thoughtful review on the book: This is not a book for the faint-hearted. Painful defeats are coupled with glorious victories. Suskind lays open older son Walt’s pain at having a brother who is always making a scene. And while Owen begins school at the Lab School (a success), […]
Interview with the CBC
Recently, Ron and Cornelia sat down with the Canadian Broadcasting Company to discuss Owen’s affinities. The CBC has since written an article about Life, Animated in which they provide more information on Owen’s trajectory: Owen began to have issues as a two-year-old, just after the family moved to Washington D.C. He stopped sleeping, he stopped […]
New study inspired by Life, Animated
M.R.I.s of an autistic child’s brain before and after pivotal response treatment at Yale. The New York Times reports that neuroscientists and autism researchers from Yale, MIT, and Cambridge University are launching a study inspired by Life, Animated. The researchers seek to probe and codify the “affinity therapy” Ron describes in the book, which he […]
Excerpt in Parade
Parade has published a short excerpt of Life, Animated– about Owen’s relationship with The Little Mermaid. Read it here!
Review in the Boston Globe
The Boston Globe’s James Sullivan reviewed Life, Animated for the paper. He draws a connection between Ron’s first book and this most recent one: Ron Suskind’s first book was “A Hope in the Unseen,” the story of an academically hungry boy from a troubled city high school applying to an Ivy League university. The […]
Interview with the Harvard Gazette
Ron recently sat down with Colleen Walsh to speak about Life, Animated. Here’s an excerpt: Suskind discussed his most personal work on a cloudy afternoon in a small fifth-floor office at the edge of Harvard Square. A recent flurry of book-related interviews and speaking engagements hadn’t quelled his energy. He was quick to laugh, and […]