In this book, Kristy gets a regular job sitting for an autistic child several times a week for a month while she is in between special schools. The book and its descriptions of autism seem very dated in some ways, maybe because so many more kids are being diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum these days. For one thing, when Mrs. Felder is explaining autism to Kristy, she says that Susan is "extremely retarded." This book doesn't use the word "spectrum" but it's clear that Susan would be on the more severe end of it. She doesn't talk or communicate. She does, however, have some very specialized talents. She can play anything on the piano after hearing it once, and if told a date, she can tell you the day of the week it falls on as long as it's not more than 60 years in the past or 20 years in the future.
Kristy decides within about five minutes of meeting Susan that her parents are wrong to send her to special schools and that she, Kristy, will make Susan make some friends and fit into the neighborhood. It's like she didn't even listen to anything Mrs. Felder said.
There are some other new kids in town, the Hobart family. Ben, James, Mathew, and Johnny are from Australia and they are having a hard time fitting in because the other kids tease them for being different. I am not sure why. When I was a kid my parents were going to college and I met several kids from other countries whose parents were studying in the US. Mostly we just treated them like any other kids except for trying to get them to teach us swear words in their languages. But I guess the Stoneybrook kids are more threatened by anyone who is different. Oh but the kids who are teasing the Hobarts are not the usual sweet well mannered backyard-carnival having kids the BSC usually sits for. It's mainly a couple of boys named Mel and Zach, who show up every so often throughout the series but only in books relating to the Hobarts. They are not friends with anyone else the club sits for.
Kristy takes Susan over to play with the Hobart kids a lot while she is sitting. James, who is eight like Susan, tries to be friends with her, but it's hard because Susan really doesn't have the skills to communicate or play with him. Meanwhile Zach and Mel keep coming by the Hobart boys' backyard to taunt them about being Australian and talking funny. (I found out much much later from Australian friends on the internet that the "Aussie slang" in these books is about as accurate at the portrayal of all Californians as being blonde health nuts anyway.)
At an assembly at school, Kristy is seated behind the special ed class, and sees that one boy is autistic although less severely than Susan. This redoubles her determination to show the Felders that Susan could be educated right in good ol' Stoneybrook. You know, because the thought probably never crossed their mind at all. Also she describes all of the kids in the class and says that three of them are retarded. This book contains a lot of usage of the words retard and retarded and it's very jarring.
The most memorable scene in this book is one that happens toward the end, when Kristy is sitting and kids keep coming over to ask Susan dates or get her to play the piano. One girl has brought a record of The Sheik of Araby. The record skips and when Susan plays and sings the song, she plays the skips. Kristy discovers that Mel Tucker is charging the kids a dollar to do this and calling Susan "the incredible retard who can memorize dates and music. The amazing dumbo who can sing but not talk." Kristy yells at him and he runs away. I always think of that scene first when I think of this book.
After yelling at Mel, Kristy goes over to the Hobart house and James is playing and skateboarding with Zach, who wants to be friends with him after all. Kristy sits and talks to Claudia who is sitting for the Hobarts and says she's realized that Susan is very severely handicapped and that probably her parents have made the right decision for her schooling.
Kristy goes over for one last sitting job and helps Mrs. Felder pack up Susan's things for the new school, and they talk about Susan and she finds out that Mrs. Felder is pregnant with another little girl who will be named Hope. I think it would have been nice if the club had ever sat for Hope or even seen her out and about with her mom but the Felders are one-book characters so they never did.
At the end of the book Mallory announces that Ben Hobart asked her to the movies, which marks the official start of their awkward geeky romance. (In one book they have a fight over the right way to use the card catalog.) It's things like this that made me think my school was just backwards, because I was eleven when this book was published and nobody I knew was going on dates to the movies.
No comments:
Post a Comment