Title: Alienated

Author/Illustrator: Sophie Shortland

Publisher/Year: ThunderStone Books/2018

Back Cover Blurb: A boy with autism makes a friend who helps him come to terms with the world around him.

A young boy feels isolated and alone. He doesn’t fit in with the kids at school and even has trouble relating to his own family. Everyone seems strange, noisy, and different from him. But one day, he meets a girl who’s very much like him. The two form a special friendship in which there’s no need to talk or even do the same activities. They are happy just to have the company of the other. Being with the girl makes the boy feel less alienated.

In this colorful book, populated with “alien” people, author/illustrator Sophie Shortland has given readers a glimpse of life through the eyes of a child with autism. Interestingly, she chose to depict the boy as human, but everyone else as aliens. It’s important for readers to see the boy this way because it reinforces the message that kids with autism are human beings, deserving of kindness and respect, just like all people.

Though autism is the focus, I believe any child who feels lonely or different, or is shy and has trouble making friends, will connect with this book. Once upon a time, I was such a child. Perhaps a book like this could have helped me to feel a little less like an oddball and a little more like I belonged.