Thumbsucker
Eliza Fricker
Jessica Kingsley Publishers

Eliza Fricker is a neurodivergent author and illustrator who didn’t receive an autism diagnosis until she was an adult. In this moving book she writes about what it was like as a girl who grew up in the 1980s feeling different and constantly beset by worries.

She was called among other things, fussy, a hypochondriac, fickle, spoilt, contrary, gullible, a freak, a chatterbox, a wimp and a weirdo, some of these labels being given to her child self by other people, and some perhaps were self dubbed.

She takes each one and in graphic novel style presents a vignette exemplar.

Fiercely honest, humorous and affecting, it reinforces my feeling that all teachers and others who work with children or young adults should have training on how neurodivergence presents itself in childhood, especially in girls and how best they can support neurodivergent learners. This book is an excellent, albeit salutary starting point for anybody involved with the welfare of the young.
A copy should definitely be in every school staff collection.

I am an Autistic Girl
Danuta Bulhak-Paterson, illustrated by Terersa Ferguson
Jessica Kingsley Publishers

This is an updated edition of I am an Aspie Girl published several years ago, which was reviewed on this blog in 2016.