Coraline By Neil Gaiman

Is a very creepy book. It's a kids book, written for about 4th to 6th grade, I would guess. I finished it this morning. It's a story about a girl who inadvertantly wanders into a parallel world on the other side of her flat, and ends up having to go back to it to save her parents from her "other mother" who has taken them hostage so that Coraline will be her daughter. I thought it was great. Definitely one of the better kids books I've read. Katherine wants me to read the whole thing to her, and I've already started to, but I'm not sure she's ready for such a scary book. It's not gory or anything, just really weird.

Danse Macabre

Okay. I'm going to finally lay the Anita Blake books to rest in my own mind. Anita's not dead in the books yet, but for me, she is. I started reading the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series more than eight years ago. For about the first five or six books I read, I really liked them. I think Danse Macabre is number 13. I love the characters Laurel K. Hamilton created and like old friends, I keep wanting to come back to them. But now I'm tired of reading about Anita's sexual exploits. I want her to solve a crime or something, but instead, she and everyone around her has become obsessed with sex, due to the ardeur. I just don't enjoy reading the books anymore. Don't get me wrong, a little sex is okay, I'm not a prude, but come on, LKH! She is seriously sacrificing what used to be a really great series on the altar of self indulgence. I'm done now.

Unstrange Minds

New book to report. It's called Unstrange Minds by Roy Richard Grinker. It too is about autism and they way different cultures treat autism. He goes into depth about South Korea, where autism carries a heavy stigma for all of the families affected by it. Again, the issue of confusing autism with Reactive Attachment Disorder comes up. Many South Koreans think that if you can blame Autism on bad parenting and cold mothers, then you can deny that any genes are involved and that the gene pool might be "tainted" in a particular family. Unfortunately, very little effort is focused on actually educating their autistic children as they are seen as a lost cause by many and not worth the effort. It reminded me of a conversation that I had with our next door neighbor about how, according to him Asians don't have autism (he is Filipino). He thought it was an American thing. I told him that there was most certainly autistic kids in the Philipines, but they were probably hidden, not talked about and perhaps institutionalized. I'm glad that autism is being talked about and accepted more often today. It brings hope that when Ben grows up, there will be more tolerance and compassion for him to enjoy. One controversal point this book makes is the author doesn't think there has been a significant rise in the incidence of autism. He maintains that the rate of autism has always been about the same, but it was only in the late 20th century that we've started classifying it correctly. Interesting things to think about, definitely. I recommend this book!

Autism and the God Connection

Okay, so I'm cheating a little here. I've actually read a few books since my last post and I'll catch you up. Autism and the God Connection was the first one and it wasn't a bad book. I liked it. I lent it to Ben's OT so she could read it, but it's probably not something I'm going to read more than once. It's theory is persons with autism are more closely linked with God, and can see and hear things us regular people can't. I often think Ben sees things where we can't, how else do you explain flapping at nothing? The other book I've been reading rather reluctantly is Lisey's Story by Stephen King. And I'm giving up. I don't like it. I've read about 150 pages and it's just not compelling me. I guess I'll sell it on ebay. Life is short. No sense wasting my time. I've also recently finished a book I got from the library entitled "Not Buying It". It's written by a journalist who, along with her boyfriend goes an entire year without buying anything but the most basic of needs, like food. It's written as a journal, and I liked it quite a bit. I found it inspiring. I had a garage sale this weekend and it was amazing how much stuff I've collected and paid hard earned money for that I really don't care about! So, lesson learned, at least for now.