The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Nao

Description: The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida, KA Yoshida, David Mitchell Includes Readers guide with a postscript and interview by David Mitchell. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description "One of the most remarkable books Ive ever read. Its truly moving, eye-opening, incredibly vivid."—Jon Stewart, The Daily ShowNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BYNPR • The Wall Street Journal • Bloomberg Business • BookishFINALIST FOR THE BOOKS FOR A BETTER LIFE FIRST BOOK AWARD • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERYouve never read a book like The Reason I Jump. Written by Naoki Higashida, a very smart, very self-aware, and very charming thirteen-year-old boy with autism, it is a one-of-a-kind memoir that demonstrates how an autistic mind thinks, feels, perceives, and responds in ways few of us can imagine. Parents and family members who never thought they could get inside the head of their autistic loved one at last have a way to break through to the curious, subtle, and complex life within. Using an alphabet grid to painstakingly construct words, sentences, and thoughts that he is unable to speak out loud, Naoki answers even the most delicate questions that people want to know. Questions such as: "Why do people with autism talk so loudly and weirdly?" "Why do you line up your toy cars and blocks?" "Why dont you make eye contact when youre talking?" and "Whats the reason you jump?" (Naokis answer: "When Im jumping, its as if my feelings are going upward to the sky.") With disarming honesty and a generous heart, Naoki shares his unique point of view on not only autism but life itself. His insights—into the mystery of words, the wonders of laughter, and the elusiveness of memory—are so startling, so strange, and so powerful that you will never look at the world the same way again. In his introduction, bestselling novelist David Mitchell writes that Naokis words allowed him to feel, for the first time, as if his own autistic child was explaining what was happening in his mind. "It is no exaggeration to say that The Reason I Jump allowed me to round a corner in our relationship." This translation was a labor of love by David and his wife, KA Yoshida, so theyd be able to share that feeling with friends, the wider autism community, and beyond. Naokis book, in its beauty, truthfulness, and simplicity, is a gift to be shared.Praise for The Reason I Jump"This is an intimate book, one that brings readers right into an autistic mind."—Chicago Tribune (Editors Choice)"Amazing times a million."—Whoopi Goldberg, People"The Reason I Jump is a Rosetta stone. . . . This book takes about ninety minutes to read, and it will stretch your vision of what it is to be human."—Andrew Solomon, The Times (U.K.)"Extraordinary, moving, and jeweled with epiphanies."—The Boston Globe "Small but profound . . . [Higashidas] startling, moving insights offer a rare look inside the autistic mind."—Parade Author Biography Naoki Higashida was born in Kimitsu, Japan in 1992. Diagnosed with severe autism when he was five, he subsequently learned to communicate using a handmade alphabet grid and began to write poems and short stories. At the age of thirteen he wrote The Reason I Jump, which was published in Japan in 2007. Its English translation came out in 2013, and it has now been published in more than thirty languages. Higashida has since published several books in Japan, including childrens and picture books, poems, and essays. The subject of an award-winning Japanese television documentary in 2014, he continues to give presentations throughout the country about his experience of autism. David Mitchell is the author of seven novels, including Cloud Atlas, The Bone Clocks, and, most recently, Slade House. KA Yoshida was born in Yamaguchi, Japan, and specialized in English poetry at Notre Dame Seishin University. KA Yoshida and David Mitchell live in Ireland with their two children. Review "One of the most remarkable books Ive ever read. Its truly moving, eye-opening, incredibly vivid."—Jon Stewart, The Daily Show"Please dont assume that The Reason I Jump is just another book for the crowded autism shelf. . . . This is an intimate book, one that brings readers right into an autistic mind—what its like without boundaries of time, why cues and prompts are necessary, and why its so impossible to hold someone elses hand. Of course, theres a wide range of behavior here; thats why on the spectrum has become such a popular phrase. But by listening to this voice, we can understand its echoes."—Chicago Tribune (Editors Choice)"Amazing times a million."—Whoopi Goldberg, People"The Reason I Jump is a Rosetta stone. . . . I had to keep reminding myself that the author was a thirteen-year-old boy when he wrote this . . . because the freshness of voice coexists with so much wisdom. This book takes about ninety minutes to read, and it will stretch your vision of what it is to be human."—Andrew Solomon, The Times (U.K.)"Extraordinary, moving, and jeweled with epiphanies."—The Boston Globe"Small but profound . . . [Naoki Higashidas] startling, moving insights offer a rare look inside the autistic mind."—Parade"Surely one of the most remarkable books yet to be featured in these pages . . . With about one in 88 children identified with an autism spectrum disorder, and family, friends, and educators hungry for information, this inspiring books continued success seems inevitable."—Publishers Weekly "We have our received ideas, we believe they correspond roughly to the way things are, then a book comes along that simply blows all this so-called knowledge out of the water. This is one of them. . . . An entry into another world."—Daily Mail (U.K.)"Every page dismantles another preconception about autism. . . . Once you understand how Higashida managed to write this book, you lose your heart to him."—New Statesman (U.K.) "Astonishing. The Reason I Jump builds one of the strongest bridges yet constructed between the world of autism and the neurotypical world. . . . There are many more questions Id like to ask Naoki, but the first words Id say to him are thank you."—The Sunday Times (U.K.) "This is a guide to what it feels like to be autistic. . . . In Mitchell and Yoshidas translation, [Higashida] comes across as a thoughtful writer with a lucid simplicity that is both childlike and lyrical. . . . Higashida is living proof of something we should all remember: in every autistic child, however cut off and distant they may outwardly seem, there resides a warm, beating heart."—Financial Times (U.K.) "Higashidas childs-eye view of autism is as much a winsome work of the imagination as it is a users manual for parents, carers and teachers. . . . This book gives us autism from the inside, as we have never seen it. . . . [Higashida] offers readers eloquent access into an almost entirely unknown world."—The Independent (U.K.)"The Reason I Jump is a wise, beautiful, intimate and courageous explanation of autism as it is lived every day by one remarkable boy. Naoki Higashida takes us behind the mirror—his testimony should be read by parents, teachers, siblings, friends, and anybody who knows and loves an autistic person. I only wish Id had this book to defend myself when I was Naokis age."—Tim Page, author of Parallel Play and professor of journalism and music at the University of Southern California"[Higashida] illuminates his autism from within. . . . Anyone struggling to understand autism will be grateful for the book and translation."—Kirkus Reviews Review Quote "One of the most remarkable books Ive ever read. Its truly moving, eye-opening, incredibly vivid." --Jon Stewart, The Daily Show "Please dont assume that The Reason I Jump is just another book for the crowded autism shelf. . . . This is an intimate book, one that brings readers right into an autistic mind--what its like without boundaries of time, why cues and prompts are necessary, and why its so impossible to hold someone elses hand. Of course, theres a wide range of behavior here; thats why on the spectrum has become such a popular phrase. But by listening to this voice, we can understand its echoes." -- Chicago Tribune (Editors Choice) "Amazing times a million." --Whoopi Goldberg, People " The Reason I Jump is a Rosetta stone. . . . I had to keep reminding myself that the author was a thirteen-year-old boy when he wrote this . . . because the freshness of voice coexists with so much wisdom. This book takes about ninety minutes to read, and it will stretch your vision of what it is to be human." --Andrew Solomon, The Times (U.K.) "Extraordinary, moving, and jeweled with epiphanies." --The Boston Globe "Small but profound . . . [Naoki Higashidas] startling, moving insights offer a rare look inside the autistic mind." -- Parade "Surely one of the most remarkable books yet to be featured in these pages . . . With about one in 88 children identified with an autism spectrum disorder, and family, friends, and educators hungry for information, this inspiring books continued success seems inevitable." -- Publishers Weekly Excerpt from Book Introduction David Mitchell The thirteen-year-old author of this book invites you, his reader, to imagine a daily life in which your faculty of speech is taken away. Explaining that youre hungry, or tired, or in pain, is now as beyond your powers as a chat with a friend. Id like to push the thought-experiment a little further. Now imagine that after you lose your ability to communicate, the editor-in-residence who orders your thoughts walks out without notice. The chances are that you never knew this mind-editor existed, but now that he or she has gone, you realize too late how the editor allowed your mind to function for all these years. A dam-burst of ideas, memories, impulses and thoughts is cascading over you, unstoppably. Your editor controlled this flow, diverting the vast majority away, and recommending just a tiny number for your conscious consideration. But now youre on your own. Now your mind is a room where twenty radios, all tuned to different stations, are blaring out voices and music. The radios have no off-switches or volume controls, the room youre in has no door or window, and relief will come only when youre too exhausted to stay awake. To make matters worse, another hitherto unrecognized editor has just quit without notice--your editor of the senses. Suddenly sensory input from your environment is flooding in too, unfiltered in quality and overwhelming in quantity. Colors and patterns swim and clamor for your attention. The fabric softener in your sweater smells as strong as air freshener fired up your nostrils. Your comfy jeans are now as scratchy as steel wool. Your vestibular and proprioceptive senses are also out of kilter, so the floor keeps tilting like a ferry in heavy seas, and youre no longer sure where your hands and feet are in relation to the rest of you. You can feel the plates of your skull, plus your facial muscles and your jaw; your head feels trapped inside a motorcycle helmet three sizes too small which may or may not explain why the air conditioner is as deafening as an electric drill, but your father--whos right here in front of you--sounds as if hes speaking to you from a cellphone, on a train going through lots of short tunnels, in fluent Cantonese. You are no longer able to comprehend your mother tongue, or any tongue: from now on, all languages will be foreign languages. Even your sense of time has gone, rendering you unable to distinguish between a minute and an hour, as if youve been entombed in an Emily Dickinson poem about eternity, or locked into a time-bending SF film. Poems and films, however, come to an end, whereas this is your new ongoing reality. Autism is a lifelong condition. Thanks for sticking to the end, though the real end, for most of us, would involve sedation and being forcibly hospitalized, and what happens next its better not to speculate. Yet for those people born onto the autistic spectrum, this unedited, unfiltered and scary-as-all-hell reality is home. The functions that genetics bestows on the rest of us--the "editors"--as a birthright, people with autism must spend their lives learning how to simulate. It is an intellectual and emotional task of Herculean, Sisyphean and Titanic proportions, and if the autistic people who undertake it arent heroes, then I dont know what heroism is, never mind that the heroes have no choice. Sentience itself is not so much a fact to be taken for granted, but a brickby-brick, self-built construct requiring constant maintenance. As if this wasnt a tall enough order, people with autism must survive in an outside world where "special needs" is playground slang for "retarded," where melt-downs and panic attacks are viewed as tantrums, where disability allowance claimants are assumed by many to be welfare scroungers, and where British foreign policy can be described as "autistic" by a French minister. (M. Lellouche apologized later, explaining that he never dreamed that the adjective could have caused offense. I dont doubt it.) Autism is no cakewalk for the childs parents or carers either, and raising an autistic son or daughter is no job for the fainthearted--in fact, faintheartedness is doomed by the fi rst niggling doubt that theres Something Not Quite Right about your sixteen-month-old. On Diagnosis Day, a child psychologist hands down the verdict with a worn-smooth truism about your son still being the same little guy that he was before this life-redefining news was confirmed. Then you run the gauntlet of other peoples reactions: "Its just so sad"; "What, so hes going to be like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man?"; "I hope youre not going to take this so-called diagnosis lying down!"; and my favorite, "Yes, well, I told my pediatrician where to go stick his MMR jabs." Your first contacts with most support agencies will put the last nails in the coffin of faintheartedness, and graft onto you a layer of scar tissue and cynicism as thick as rhino hide. There are gifted and resourceful people working in autism support, but with depressing regularity government policy appears to be about Band-Aids and fig leaves, and not about realizing the potential of children with special needs and helping them become long-term net contributors to society. The scant silver lining is that medical theory is no longer blaming your wife for causing the autism by being a "Refrigerator Mother" as it did not so long ago (Refrigerator Fathers were unavailable for comment) and that you dont live in a society where people with autism are believed to be witches or devils and get treated accordingly. Where to turn to next? Books. (Youll have started already, because the first reaction of friends and family desperate to help is to send clippings, Web links and literature, however tangential to your own situation.) Special Needs publishing is a jungle. Many How to Help Your Autistic Child manuals have a doctrinaire spin, with generous helpings of Details ISBN081298515X Author David Mitchell Short Title REASON I JUMP Language English Translator David Mitchell ISBN-10 081298515X ISBN-13 9780812985153 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY B Year 2016 Publication Date 2016-03-22 Imprint Random House Trade Paperbacks Subtitle The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2016-03-22 NZ Release Date 2016-03-22 US Release Date 2016-03-22 UK Release Date 2016-03-22 Place of Publication New York Illustrations LINE DRAWINGS Pages 208 Publisher Random House USA Inc Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:97525273;

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