Raising Cubby: the ‘other side’ of autism parenting

With its release date set for March 12, Raising Cubby by John Elder Robison (Crown, 2013) seems a natural for my list of recommended books about autism.

Here is an update by Robison on Facebook that was posted this morning:

“The horror of autism! The anguish! Too many books have demonized young people like my son and I, and sensationalized our difficulties, in the name of memoir writing.

“The fact is, there are fun times in every family. How could it be otherwise? If kids weren’t fun, parents would simply eat them when the cupboards got bare.”

Trust Robison to provide a much-needed alternative to “my child is autistic and life is horrible” sensationalism.

Accepting the latter view means accepting that my existence made my mother’s life and my family’s life horrible and that, I refuse to do.

Raising Cubby, according to Robison, is “a celebration of the ‘other side’ of autism parenting, with the added twist of autistic parents.”

Published Sept. 18, 2012 in the Lake County Record-Bee

‘Social Thinking at Work’ provides detailed explanation

Social Thinking at Work: A Guidebook for Understanding and Navigating the Social Complexities of the Workplace by Michelle Garcia Winner and Pamela Crooke is a worthy addition to my list of books for people on the autism spectrum.

UUA selects The New Jim Crow as 2012-13 Common Read

The Unitarian Universalist Association announced Friday that the 2012-2013 UUA Common Read is The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (The New Press, 2012):

“In this remarkable book, civil rights advocate and litigator Michelle Alexander asserts that crime-fighting policies and systems in the U.S., such as the ‘war on drugs’ and the incarceration system disproportionately and intentionally affect Americans of color. She describes multifaceted, lifelong discrimination and disenfranchisement that affect people who are branded ‘felon.’”

The UUA Common Read invites participants to read and discuss the same book in a given period of time. Its previous selections, Acts of Faith by Eboo Patel and The Death of Josseline by Margaret Regan, are both available in our UUCLC Lending Library. As stated by the UUA:

“A Common Read can build community in our congregations and our movement by giving diverse people a shared experience, shared language, and a basis for deep, meaningful conversations. A discussion guide to The New Jim Crow will be available online in October, 2012, to help Unitarian Universalist (UU) groups reflect on the book and consider together what steps they are called to take, as people of faith, in response to Alexander's call for awareness and action.”

Study guides for the previous Common Read selections can be accessed from http://www.uua.org/re/multigenerational/read/index.shtml.

Cross-posted from the UUCLC Lending Library’s WordPress blog

Great cataloging aid: OCLC Classify

OCLC Classify is a great cataloging aid; I searched for a book in its database this morning.

The site displays the classification numbers that are most frequently assigned to that book in both Dewey and Library of Congress classification systems.

My thanks to Lorcan Dempsey on Twitter for informing me about this resource.

Libraries have their own PAC

EveryLibrary, the first and only national political action committee (PAC) for libraries, launched this week. Its objective: ballot initiatives and measures for local libraries.