Cynthia Lord’s Rules – A Must Read

I tend to gravitate toward award winning books (well, okay, let’s be honest, I will read anything I can get my hands on: cereal boxes, shampoo bottles).

So when I saw that Rules, by Cynthia Lord, earned the Newberry Award, I happily added it to my Amazon cart to reach $25 so I could have free shipping (yes, I am a cheapskate) without seeing what it was about. Now that I’ve read it, I think it should be required reading in every public school curriculum.

Rules tells the story of Catherine, a twelve year old girl dealing with all the issues of twelve year old girls, with the added complication of having a younger brother with autism, David. To help David learn how to interact with a world that sees things differently than he does, Catherine keeps a book of rules for David to help him remember things, such as:

• No toys in the fish tank.
• Chew with your mouth closed.
• Late doesn’t mean not coming.
• Sometimes people laugh when they like you. But sometimes they laugh to hurt you.

Catherine deals with the normal feelings of being embarassed at how her brother behaves and how others treat him as well as the normal feelings of being neglected or ignored because much of her family’s life revolves around David and his autism.

She longs for a friend with whom she can be “normal”, and when a new girl moves in next door she hopes she’s found that friendship. But when the girl starts to make friends with Ryan, a “cool” boy who has repeatedly picked on David and exploited David’s autism for his own amusement, Catherine suspects this friendship may not be the one she seeks.

Catherine also befriends Jason, a boy in a wheelchair who cannot speak and uses a notebook full of words to communicate, who attends therapy at the same place as David. Their relationship forces Catherine to examine what her definitions of friendship and “normal” should be.

Cynthia Lord does a fantastic job of depicting the very raw emotions tied up with being the “normal” older sister of a sibling with a disability without being heavy.

She also conveys the behavior of someone with autism in a realistic and non-caricaturish way. Her writing style is compelling and reachable. The book is entertaining to both adults and children ages ten and up.

In a word, Rules rules.