Anything But Typical – Book Discussion

Nora Raleigh Baskin’s Anything But Typical is about Jason Blake, a 12-year-old boy diagnosed on the autism spectrum.  He’s not very good in social situations and often misunderstands facial expressions, but he is also an amazing writer.  He becomes friends with a girl on the Storyboard website where he posts his stories.  Soon he learns that he’ll have a chance to meet this girl at a story convention and he begins to wonder if she’ll see him differently when she realizes he has a disability.

My middle school kids (entering grades 5 – 8) had very strong opinions about the book and the characters.  The majority of the kids didn’t like the ending, although also thought is was realistic.  Many had strong feelings about how Jason’s mom treated him.

I like reading books that have characters with disabilities because it gives the kids a chance to talk about an issue they see at school, with their friends, and even in their families.  It was great to have a participant in the book discussion who had a sister on the autism spectrum who was willing about giving the group some more information.  This group of kids were very opinionated about bullying other students with disabilities and (I think) were happy to have a place to talk about disabilities without feeling uncomfortable about it.  Although we used this book for a short book discussion (30 minutes), the kids had a lot to say and did a great job answering questions and building off each other’s thoughts.

The cover of Anything But Typical reminds me of Zentangle, a form of drawing and doodling.  This would be a great tie-in to a book discussion.  To learn how to Zentangle or create a program for kids, check out this blog post from Imagination Soup.

To see a book trailer for Anything But Typical, check YouTube.  For more information about the author, check out her website!