Initially I picked this book up due to a desire better understand the subject matter, and I saw the initial positive reviews. The story of Naoki Higashida writing this book as a 13-year-old wanting to share his experiences with autism, was a compelling enough reason in and of itself. In this sense, I would say that there is genuinely good information shared as pertains to this perspective. Higashida is a remarkable young man whose experience is important and needs to be shared.

That said, because of the position of the young author, I feel that a great deal of liberty was likely taken by the editor (and later on by the translators) when conveying Higashida’s words. I think this was done with nothing but the best intentions, and not done so with any nefarious desire to spread malicious falsehoods. Given my lack of knowledge on this topic, I did seek out other perspectives and saw these sentiments echoed in Sally Tisdale’s NYT review .

I’m still not sure of how I should feel about this book. On the one hand, I feel like there is an important perspective here. On the other hand, I feel like this perspective may have been inadvertently altered through the lens of the adults involved in publishing the work. It was a nagging feeling I could not ignore as I flipped from page to page. If anyone else has any thoughts, I’d genuinely like to know your own two cents on this one.