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Can you see me? by Libby Scott and Rebecca Westcott

Some books grip you, others don't. Some take me for ever to read and some I can plough through in a couple of evenings.

This book I put in my amazon wish list and I published it on the Acts of Kindness UK group on Facebook, if you haven't seen it go and have a look, there's lots of loveliness out there in a world of such uncertainty at the moment. I received it in the post from someone I know (but not very well) and it was lovely to receive it.

The story is written from the perspective of Tally (Natalia) an 11 year old with Autism who is about to start secondary school. It includes diary entries written by Libby Scott who is also autistic and sheds a real light into what it is like living with the condition.

The story goes through the every day life of an autistic child, the things they face, the emotions and anxiety that goes through their heads constantly. This is put across as Tally' experiences, that no one likes her, that she's different from everyone else, that her sister hates her for not being normal, but you soon realise that Tally hasn't explained her autism to anyone other than her best friend Layla. Other children make fun of her, calling her "Weirdo Adams" and are genuinely cruel to her.
Tally's family take in a neighbours dog, who only has three legs and Tally soon realises that the dog is not aggressive as she has been told but that he is scared of his new surroundings and the people he is now with. Tally soon starts to talk to the dog as her only friend and their friendship grows.
At school after a while Tally starts to trust one teacher and things slowly start to get better. But after one big incident when she thinks her friends have finally deserted her, she starts to see that she's not so different after all. everyone has their anxieties, everyone is scared of something and people deal with these things in different ways.

This book is aimed at the young adult reader and if you know someone who is autistic it is well worth the read. I'd recommend it for good readers aged ten and above. It is very well written and the diary entries really add to the overall power of the book. It gives a good insight into the lives of an autistic child another family and what every day life is like.

I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads.

This book was one of the ones that gripped me, I read it over two evenings late into the night!
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Comments

  1. Moors-Mummy2 April 2020 at 17:05

    You know that feeling when you finish a good book and you don’t want to start another one in case it doesn’t live up to the last one. Yep that!

    ReplyDelete

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