Through the Eyes of Me
A Sensitive and Illuminating Account of a Child With Autism
24 August 2017
Graffeg Limited
32 Pages
9781912213009
£6.99
Ages 3+
“Through the eyes of me is a sensitive and illuminating account of life as a child with autism. ”
Through this beautiful, colourful picture book.
Readers will meet four year old Kya, getting to know her likes and dislikes and all the new offences of her character.
An ideal tool for developing an understanding of autism with young readers , the book has received numerous endorsements from parents teachers and health professionals.
About the Author
Debut Swansea – based writer Jon Roberts drew the material for the book from his experience of raising his own daughter Kya,who was diagnosed with severe autism. He sought to create a simple to read, but nonetheless informative and engagingly presented account, explaining her differences and beautiful quirks.
As well as writing, Jon works full time in IT and looks after his five year old daughter who has severe autism, with his wife Sarah. He classes himself very lucky as he and his beautiful family live near Swansea, where they enjoy long walks along breathtaking beaches and rolling countryside. Through the eyes of me is his first published book @strawberry ASD
Disability charity Scope described through the eyes of me as “delightfully told and beautifully beautifully illustrated… Will help siblings, classmates and anyone who knows a child on the autism spectrum.”
Here is what you may not know about autism:
There are over 700,000 people diagnosed with autism in the UK, one in 100 people.
Autism affects 2.8 million family members in the UK alone.
Jon Roberts says: “The reaction to Through the Eyes of Me so far has been fantastic. I have shown the book to parents and professionals and they all love it and I’m looking forward to sharing it with their children.”
Amy Willetton TV presenter and model.
John has created a wonderful book in praise of his amazing daughter. The illustrations are captivating and I love the way it highlights the world through the eyes of young person on the autism spectrum.
Anna Kennedy OBE
This beautiful and charming book captures the true delights of being autistic.
Alan Gardner the autistic Gardner
Through the eyes of me is a great children’s book that looks at what life is like for Kia as a young autistic girl. It is done in a simple, easy to follow an extremely positive way that I feel could be helpful to other autistic children and many children in general to simply understand autism.
Alex Lowery, autistic public speaker and trainer on autism
Without further ado, here’s what I thought of the book.
I love running I love reading I love ice cream I am Kya, I am autistic and this is my world.
As an adult with physical and sensory disabilities. I think there are never enough books written by, for or on behalf of people with disabilities. I like to read books about people’s experiences, too , whether they have disabilities or not.
I got sent this book by the author Jon Roberts and the publisher Graffeg Books in exchange for an honest review.
The first thing that really touched me about the book was its title. Through the Eyes of Me immediately suggests that it is going to be a very personal story. I was not wrong.
Jon uses first person language so it is as if his daughter Kya were talking to us through the pages of the book. He describes what she loves to do and also what she doesn’t like to do and what makes her scared or causes her anxiety.
Through the Eyes of Me is a portrait of a four-year old (now 5) girl first and foremost, but it is also a subtle look into the world of autism for those of us who do not have it and don’t know too much about it.
The book has beautiful and colourful illustrations by Hannah Rounding which really compliment the book and make it very visual.
The writing style automatically drew me into the book and I could imagine Kya’s daily life. As an extra nice touch, the book has a “this book belongs to” page and also a useful links page with important organisations for those wishing to find out more about autism, and the help and support out there for people with this disability.
The book is written in large print which is useful for children, as well as people with visual impairment I love the way that the words in the sentence that the author wanted emphasised about his daughter’s personality, likes or dislikes are written in a different font and colour to the rest of the sentence. It really makes them stand out, and, I feel, represents Kya’s personality.
Even though I do not know Kya or her family, I feel like I know them after having read this book, and other key themes throughout the book are love, determination and devotion in spite of adversity. I get the feeling that so many people could learn so much from this book, and although the book is only 32 pages, it covers a lot of ground and is very memorable and effective.
I recommend it as a learning and teaching resource. Parents could read it to their children or children who are old enough could read it themselves. It would also be a great classroom teaching resource to help towards gaining more autism awareness.
I was interested to know more about Jon and Kya, and was happy to read about where they live as the Swansea area is familiar to me because I spent a year studying at the University there.
If you would like to know more about the creation of this book and the motivations behind it, watch this video
Thanks so much to Scope for featuring this book on their website, which is where I found information about it. Thank you to both Scope and Graffeg Limited for a copy of the book.
