In How to Be Human, Florida Frenz chronicles her journey figuring out how to read facial expressions, how to make friends, how to juggle all the social cues that make school feel like a complicated maze. Diagnosed with autism as a two-year-old, Florida is now an articulate 15-year-old whose explorations into how kids make friends, what popularity means, how to handle peer pressure will resonate with any pre-teen. For those wondering what it's like inside an autistic child's head, Florida's book provides amazing insight and understanding. Reading how she learns how to be human makes us all feel a little less alien.
“This book is not only an insightful and inspiring journey through the eyes of someone with autism, but a powerful teaching tool for parents, therapists and educators. Florida shows us that with perseverance, guidance and understanding the highest mountains can be climbed.”
Marcia Goldman, autism consultant
"This book is a terrific read for adolescents with ASD and Social
Communication Disorders as well as for all types of caregivers
(professionals and parents). On one hand, Florida's enchanting descriptions
and illustrations help us all to understand better the perspective of those
born to social learning differences. On the other hand this book is filled
with insight and practical strategies to encourage teachers, counselors and
students how they can all work to help each other adapt one's social
thinking and related behaviors to get along in the world, what ever world
they may live in! I love the sensitivity, artistry and ideas that flow from
these pages."
Michelle Garcia Winner
Founder of Social ThinkingR
Speech Language Pathologist, MA-CCC
A teenage author addresses others with autism with a mix of expressive drawings and insights from her own experiences intended to help “give your brain the right tools to reconfigure its hardware.”. . .Frenz has received enviable quantities of parental and professional support from kindergarten on. Still, she’s the one who had to do the work of figuring out how to make her way in the world, and readers with or seeking to understand autism will find her matter-of-fact observations both savvy and easy to absorb.
A distinctive addition to the chorus of writers who are proving that “spectrum disorders” do not equal “silence.” (Self-help. 10-14)
Kirkus Reviews
About the author:
Florida Frenz is the pen name of a high school student who kept a journal as a tool to figure out her emotions and how to read those of others. Diagnosed as retarded and autistic when she was two, Frenz worked intensively for many years with a team of autism and educational specialists. She's succeeded so well that in her new high school, she isn't identified as autistic or special needs and is even taking Advanced Placement classes.
For more on this book, visit the publisher
This book has not yet been released, you can pre-order it at a discount here.
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