Can You See Me?: A powerful story of autism, empathy and kindness

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It’s a fantastic independent book seller that will actually be responsive and select appropriate books for you. Tally's diary entries give an authentic insight into one girl's perspective of being autistic, and smashing a host of common assumptions and stereotypes about autism as we see Tally’s potent sense of humour and her deep empathy.

Based on my life experience, I have a hard time with the message that someone has to accept everything about their condition as inevitable and unchanging. It addresses she has autism but also highlights her desire of fitting in and her creative interests! At home, Tally daily has melt-downs in which she screams at her parents and her sister, tells them she hates them, and that her behavior is all their fault, and that she can't help it. She touches on the loneliness of not knowing who you really are when you mask, and that is so relatable. We sympathise with the misunderstanding of expressions such as ‘in a couple of minutes’, and the complete confusion of lying.Yet, on the other hand, I'm glad that I didn't read it then, if the message to take away from it is that you have to accept everything about yourself, and that your most excruciating suffering is part of your identity and can't change. Tally knows she’s different: she’s autistic, meaning she sees and feels everything differently to her friends and family. I started to read this last year but had to stop as it was all too near to the bone: we were filling in a 19 page form about one of my daughters to start the assessment process. But it was the specific feeling that people don’t understand why you behave in certain ways and the frustration of those needs not being met. I will never be a normal person, and my brain will always be different from the average, but I am no longer afflicted with such horrible behavioral and mental issues that I wish I could die.

Tally faces secondary school with dread about what lies ahead, despite her older sister’s advice and a Year 6 induction experience. People think that because Tally's autistic , she doesn't realise what they're thinking, but Tally sees and hears - and notices - all of it . The story is too didactic, and Tally's "Top Tips" for dealing with someone with autism sound like something an adult would say, not a middle school girl.I am not autistic, and I had the very great blessing of being homeschooled, which I appreciated even more after reading this book. Amazing read, the age suggestion is for a children's book but as an adult with a son aged 9 who will soon be having an assessment for autism and ADHD this book was wonderful to read. Tally feels sorry for Mrs Jessop’s lonely, three-legged dog that bites and growls at other members of her family. I love slice-of-life stories, but parts of this were too ordinary and detailed for my tastes, because they didn't tie into the plot or emotional current of the story, or else fulfilled the exact same purpose as a dozen other scenes.