Rules By Cynthia Lord

Lord, Cynthia. Rules. Scholastic, 2006.

"Rules" is the story of a twelve year old girl named Catherine who is tired of her entire life revolving around her brother, David who has autism. In order to keep David in line and keep him form embarrassing her, she creates numerous rules for him to follow. At David's occupational therapy clinic, Catherine meets a boy names Jason who also has a disability. Through their friendship as well as Catherine's need to be normal and have a normal family, struggles ensue eventually leading Catherine to wonder what normal actually is.

One of the reasons why I was drawn to this book was the numerous awards that it has won. "Rules" is a Newbery Honor Book, A Schneider Family Book Award Winner, an ALA Notable Children's Book, A Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book of the Year, an NCTE Notable Children's Book in the Language Arts, and A Michigan Library Association Mitten Award Winner. Considering "Rules" is Lord's first novel, I believe that this is a tremendous achievement. Furthermore, Cynthia Lord is very much an insider to this topic. She has a son who has autism but also, her daughter once asked her why she has never seen families like theirs in books and on TV. Given this question, Lord searched for "children's books that included characters with severe special needs" and was saddened to find that the ones she read were simply that, sad. I found this extremely interesting considering that we have spent much of the semester finding good quality books that are authentic as well as looking at some examples of books that are not very authentic.

"Rules" is an authentic novel that would be great for adolescent readers. Lord provides characters that grow and mature over time as well as issues and concerns that everybody can relate to.