Monday, June 30, 2025

Book Review - The Sound of a Miracle.

Book Review.




"The Sound of Miracle" is an autobiographical story that's indeed miraculous. It's a story of a mother whose first born gets detected with leukemia and the second one with autism. Her fight with circumstance and with determination to give children a life with dignity is an inspiration to every parent. The endless rounds to one hospital for blood transfusion and another to deal with autism is untiring, you always wonder how a mother can get so much strength and fight with the system and with herself to understand and find ways for her children to be happy. In the 1970s the medical science did not have the kind of advancement and understanding of Leukemia (even to this day it is not). When going gets tough it becomes more complicated and tougher.. I have seen in many cases when parents are struggling to deal with an ailing child one parent, most often the father, gives away and moves out instead of helping deal with the situation. The same happens with Annabel Stelhi, the author, and her husband and the father of two angels moves out and eventually they get divorced. It also amazes me that under such situations how children grow up and behave so maturely. Dotsie, the elder girl who is diagnosed with leukemia at the age of four takes up some responsibilities at home and comforts her mother while dealing with her own illness that she doesn't understand much about. After four years of treatment of terminal disease she never shows a sign of pain to bother her mother and peacefully goes away soon after celebrating her 8th birthday in the hospital ward with her suffering friends where she saw some other children her age passing away.

 Just a few months before Dotsie's death god shows some kindness and Anna is introduced to a kind person who she later marries her. He is also a divorcee having three children but they don't live with the protagonist. He shares her worries and genuinely loves her. As luck would have it Peter, the new husband, gets a job in Geneva and the three of them move to Switzerland where they meet a doctor who refers Georgina, the child who is autistic and gone through a lot of different treatment without much progress, although she is high functioning, to an audiologist. 

That was a game changer.. that doctor is a researcher and had developed a unique audio treatment with which he had treated some autistic children successfully. Autism as we understand is not a disease but a condition that never goes away. They are neurodiverent with certain characteristics. Only some training makes children overcome some of the disabilities and make them independent to some extent, that also varies from children to children and that's why autism is a spectrum. From high functioning on one end to the low functioning on the other where often you need constant support. Dr Guy Berard, the audiologist administered his audiology treatment and the results were amazing. In just 10 weeks it changed Georgie's life. He trained her to listen to certain frequencies and filtered out some others that used to bother her. No one believed the improvements in Georgie and some people started questioning if she was autistic in the first place. Well to cut the story short, Georgies does well at schools when the family moves back to the US and then graduates from a university with flying colours. She becomes a topic of research herself but only after she has graduated  and that's when Annabel writes this autobiography and establishes a non profit Gerogiana Institute to help people who are neurodivergent.

It's the whole system that is responsible for such miraculous healing but you need to be lucky to have the right sequence and circumstances when the right things happen by meeting the right people and in this case doctors. Georgiana and Annabel are inspiring examples who show how to WIN life. Salute to them. 

June 2025.

Book Courtesy Action For Autism, National Centre for Autism Library.

Thursday, June 5, 2025

Book Review - Somebody Somewhere.

 Book Review.





Somebody Somewhere by Donna Williams is an autobiographical sequel to her first autobiographical book Nobody Nowhere. Donna an autistic child who had difficulty growing up had described her childhood and growing up years in the first book.

In Somebody Somewhere she continues her journey after she establishes herself as an author and returns to her home country Australia to live independently. Her struggle with life continues due to autism, she describes her determination and helping others like her in this book. Her relationship with her sympathetic landlord's family and her psychologist, her reaching out to people to speak about her book for promotion and her interaction with a publishing agent towards her second book.

It's amazing how she comes as not only a winner after autism captures her at every stage of life but she also helps a few others who she finds similarly affected with ASD and makes them stronger.

At one stage during her day long stopover in Srilanka on the way from Australia to the UK she had to struggle to shut up the cab driver who behaved in a typical manner as we all experience leachers who try to attract "foreign tourists".. Their conversation goes like:

"you married? Do you have a boyfriend? Do you like Srilanka? Do you like Srilanka men? Have you ever had a boyfriend? Are you afraid of AIDS? Would you like to get married? Would you like to get married to me? The taxi driver went on and on as I answered each question honestly. It wasn't until he got to the last question and he explained his intentions that I understood what was happening. I thought it was a sort of factual quiz, a culture study on his behalf, or that maybe he was into sociology or something."

Now such conversation would make any neurotypical woman nervous, sweating and fearful but Donna braves the situation and firmly asks the driver to return to the hotel.

It's a story worth reading and appreciating her bravery.

May' 2025

#donnawilliams #SomebodySomewhere #autism #ASD

Book Review - Nobody Nowhere.

 April 03, 2025


Book Review.

Nobody Nowhere by Donna Williams.



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Seldom you come across a subject that completely changes the way you approach the world. Autism is one that has little awareness in the world, although it has gained a substantial ground over the last four decades when even people from the psychology and psychiatry profession hardly showed any interest in studying and helping those affected.

Seldom you come across a book that completely captivates you takes over your imagination and changes your perception of the world, forever. Donna Williams autobiography (written in two parts) Nobody Nowhere is one such book I discovered. Donna is autistic and born in the era when almost no one knew of this neuro divergence.

She was taken for born-mad and was punished severely by many first of all her mother. She struggled as a child and as she grew older.. left home as a teenager, survived on some people's kindness, became homeless, got exploited sexually and otherwise until she reached her twenties. The bright and intelligent girl in her could not remain in isolation and she overcame her autism issues by training herself and became a teacher and a counsellor, a writer, artist, singer- song writer, a sculptor and much more.

The book changes our perception of the condition. It's rare or almost absent that an autistic person discovers her/his condition and trains herself to overcome the hurdles and shares her experience to encourage neurodivergent people and their family and friends to live more meaningful life.

It's a must read for every one who are interested in understanding human diversity.

April 01, 2025
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Some excerpts from the book:

I had begun to feel something was missing but I did not know what it was. I had a doll and wanted very much to cut it open to see if it had any feeling inside. I took a knife and tried to pry it open but became afraid of the consequences of breaking the doll and simply went on wondering for the next few years.
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I remember, when I was about seven, how I got a slap in the face after walking into someone 's house and announcing, " it's very dirty on here", and following it up by enthusiastically informing the host that he " only had one arm.". This was fairly typical of me, and I came to earn myself a reputation as rude, hurtful and outspoken. Later this same quality sometimes came to earn me respect as someone who was "never afraid to say what she thinks."
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I believe that all thoughts begin with feelings. such children have feelings, but it has developed in isolation and can't be verbalised in the usual way, and most people cannot hear with anything other than their ears.
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TS Eliot wrote " in my beginning is my end" and in

my end is my beginning ". perhaps in some strange way I started at the end and tried to work my way back.

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Through his paintings, Vincent van Gogh tried to teach people to look beyond the surface image of things and to see the true beauty in the individuality of things so often dismissed as ugly.
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Above all I would encourage those who have strived to help people like myself that their efforts are not useless. Responding in an indirect or detached manner is not synonymous with indifference.
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