Manuscript
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| J-O-E Spells 'Brat'! Copyright © Patricia Shirra, Feb 2008 A transitional chapter book targeted at young readers between the ages of five to eight years. Allicyn and Baby Joe sure know how to ruin a perfectly good day. That’s 8 year-old Sam’s thought about his smart older sister and bratty baby brother who monopolize all of his parents’ time. A no-win situation, right? Well Sam sure thinks so when he wins the Good Citizen Award at school and no one seems to care. Tired of being the forgotten one, Sam decides to leave home and in flight overhears Mom and Dad talking about his ‘artistic’ baby brother. When Sam learns about Autism, he begins to understand his role in the family. What he learns that night causes him to think differently about Baby Joe as he no longer sees his brother as a brat.
This 3,627 word fiction book has a real-life twist – Autism – that applies more and more to the average family today. |
| ASPIE Copyright © Patricia Shirra, Jul 2008-2009 A coming of age fiction novel targeted at young adults, ages 13 - 18. Sixteen-year-old Morgan Williams is always on the outside looking in. His inability to socialize and make friends alienates him from his classmates and makes him the perfect target of class bully, Peter Davidovitch. One day, Peter’s taunting gets the best of him and he loses it, resulting in Morgan’s expulsion from school. Morgan is hospitalized and undergoes a neuropsychological assessment following his breakdown.
After some time in the hospital, Morgan is released with a working diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome. Unable to understand the disorder, he looks for answers in places outside his comfort zone. His mounting frustration with being “abnormal” and inability to accept his newly diagnosed illness leads him to engage in deviant behavior. This ironically makes him feel in control, for the first time in his life. After an episode of binge drinking followed by an arrest for Breaking and Entering, Morgan’s parents have him committed to a psychiatric residential program.
The stay in the residential program starts off rocky. Morgan is uncooperative and sometime oppositional with the hospital staff. He begins medication and undergoes psychotherapy. Drug therapy is resisted. Psychotherapy is somewhat more successful. When Morgan participates in family therapy sessions he begins to understand that he isn’t the only one adversely affected by his condition. He meets a fellow Aspie named Janine who helps him to understand and control his disorder.
At the end of the commitment period Morgan returns home and attends the local high school. While he is now better equipped to handle his internal conflict of accepting that he is different, he must still deal with the external conflict of interacting with people.
Status: Manuscript under development; completion summer 2009. |