By Holly Robinson Peete, Ryan Elizabeth Peete
A girl tells you, plainly, what it's like to be the twin sister of an autistic boy — written by a sister who is one.
Callie and Charlie are twins. She talks all the time; he's very quiet. Callie starts by telling you what Charlie is good at, and she's specific about it, because she's proud of him: the presidents, airplanes, the piano. Then she tells you the rest. Charlie's brain works in its own way. Making friends is hard for him, and so is showing what he feels. He can put himself in danger, and Callie tells you why — when Charlie wants something, he goes for it, even when it isn't safe. She remembers her mother noticing early and going to find out what was going on. And then Callie says something a lot of books skip: some days it's hard to be Charlie's sister. She doesn't take it back. She goes on to how Charlie shows he loves her, which is with what he does more than what he says, and she ends by telling you that if you met her brother, you'd feel lucky to know him. The back of the book has notes from the real family who wrote it.
I'd reach for this when a child has an autistic sibling, especially one who may be feeling more about it than they let on. Most books about autism are written for or about the autistic child; this one is written by his sister, and you can feel it in what she chooses to tell you. She leads with what Charlie can do, because she's tired of people missing it. She names the hard days without apologizing for them. And she hands a child a plain way to think about love, that it can come from what someone does and not only from what they say, which is a lot to fit into one picture book. None of it is dressed up. Charlie is her brother, and she's telling you about him.