Thousands of children receive an autism diagnosis every year. This neurological condition can profoundly affect a person's language and social development. Autism's growing prevalence has triggered a national debate: Are we getting better at diagnosing autism or is a modern health crisis unfolding before us?
Behind the debate, families are learning to live with autism. Parents wake up each morning to reconcile the Spartan social world of their son or daughter with their own. After months and years, most families find joy.
In See Sam Run, award-winning writer Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe describes how her parenthood quickly descended into chaos as her son, Sam, became uncommunicative and unmanageable. "I'd grown to hate making entries in his baby book," she writes. "The energy I had before he was born, when I wrote paragraphs anticipating his arrival, was gone now. Writing down Sam's barest achievements felt fraudulent." Little by little, she found a new truth: that by learning to understand the ugliness inside herself, she learned to love her new life and her son. Together, the family harnessed the energy needed to realize Sam's fullest potential.
See Sam Run reaches deep into the heart of anyone whose life has been touched by developmental disability--and it will resonate profoundly with those who have been transformed by a newfound ability to love.
Learn more about the story behind the book.