Book Review: "The Reason I Jump", by Naoki Higashida

I think I got this book a few months back when I wanted to read a book from different specialties, and I think this one came from learning about special needs. Naoki is a guy with autism, and wrote this book when he was in junior high. It's an interesting format, with a lot of question-and-answer sections and some selection of short stories.

The great thing about this book is how it's written by an autistic person with the goal of just describing day-to-day activities. The translator of this book, David Mitchell, mentions how he has an autistic child, and how it's so difficult in order to help him because the vast majority of resources on the subject come from people who haven't been through the experience, who haven't lived it, and it's kind of like an outsider trying to peer in. Naoki's story tells of things his mom and his school did in order to address some of the wider outstanding issues (e.g. getting him a Japanese character grid so he can spell out sentences and concentrate on something visual), which David says inspired some of the methods he's tried to improve his relationship with his kid. I think this book could come in useful if I was put in a similar situation.