Lears, Laurie, and Karen Ritz. Ian's Walk: A Story about Autism. Boston: Albert Whitman & Company, 2004.
When I open the first few pages of the children’s book, Ian’s Walk: A Story about Autism, a page entitled, “A Note about Autism”, graces me. Initially, I feel the note is a great aspect to the book. The note discusses the different kinds of feelings siblings of children with disabilities, such as autism, may have. “They may experience anger that autism has ‘happened’ to their family, embarrassment regarding the way their sibling looks or acts, and feelings of isolation because other children do not have siblings like theirs.” I think that it is wonderful that Carol P. Rolland, Ph.D. and Mary Kay McGuire, M.A, the authors of the note, focus on the feelings of the siblings, and not necessarily only focus on the child with autism or other disabilities. The only aspect of the note that stuck me as odd was the fact that the authors, one who is a chief psychologist, refer to Julie, the sibling who does not have autism as “the healthy sibling in this book”. As a special education major, I do not like the fact that they call her “the healthy sibling”. This makes me question the authors, do they feel that Ian, the sibling who is autistic, is not healthy just because he has a disability such as autism. In my opinion, it would have been more effective and correct to refer to Julie as the sibling who is not autistic or as the sibling who does not have a disability. Besides this way of classifying Ian as the “unhealthy sibling,” I did like the notes overall message about children who have siblings with disabilities and their different emotions and feelings that go along with it.
Ian’s Walk begins by showing a frustration a sister has due to her brother who has autism, which the note explained was very common. “Aw, Ian, why don’t you stay here?” Tara, the older sister says to her brother, who is autistic, about coming to the park with her and their other sister, Julie. Ian ends up going along with his sisters for a walk in the park. The next part of the story, Julie, the narrator, explains at the beginning of each page that Ian sees, hears, smells, feels, or tastes things differently. Throughout each of these pages there are beautiful water-colored, realistic illustrations, which show Ian doing certain things differently than his sisters.
Ian then gets lost in the park and his sisters become very distressed and start to look for him and ask different people in the park if they have seen him. To try to find Ian the girls attempt to think like him and end up finding him swinging from a big bell in the park. They hug him tightly, although they know he “doesn’t care for hugs.” I like that the author put this fact in about Ian not liking hugs because I know that most children with autism do not like being touched or hugged due to their disability. I feel that the author includes this information very tactfully by having the sister say it and by also having the illustration show it as well.
Although Ian’s siblings at first view his coming along for the walk as an inconvenience and slight annoyance they end up having a very nice walk. The sisters explain to the readers that, “Ian’s brain doesn’t work like other people’s,” but then end up embracing his different ways of doing things on their walk home from the park. I liked this book a lot because it shows the different feelings siblings of those with disabilities can have but in the end they realize how much they still love Ian and realize that they don’t care who’s watching as they walk home and allow Ian to walk home they way he likes. The girls learn that their brother is different and does like to do things differently but once they cannot find him they realize that it is okay that he is different and that they still love him for the person he is.
Image From: http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/14400000/14402706.JPG
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