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Type of bind: Paperback
EAN num: 9780889953307
ISBN number: 0889953309
Label: Red Deer Press
Manufacturer: Red Deer Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 176
Printing Date: September 30, 2005
Publishing house: Red Deer Press
Age index: Young Adult
Release Date: September 30, 2005
Sale Popularity Level: 1170482
Studio: Red Deer Press
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Product Description:
Shortlisted for Canadian Library Association Young Adult Book of the Year Award
2007 Manitoba Young Readers' Choice Award nominee
2007 Saskatchewan Young Readers' Choice Willow Awards nominee
Canadian Children's Book Centre Our Choice Starred Selection
White Pine nominee, 2007
McNally Robinson announced that Wild Orchid was one of the top five best selling books in Saskatechewan in 2006.
Taylour Jane Simon is 18 years old and spending the summer with her mother in Prince Albert National Park. The holiday has been planned so Taylor's mother can spend time with her latest boyfriend, Danny, and work in the pizza restaurant near the park that Danny runs. Taylour would just as soon stay at home in Saskatoon, but because she suffers from an autistic condition called Asperger's Syndrome, she can't stay on her own. Taylor's mother encourages her daughter to explore the park's possibilities on her own. For Taylor, whose life experience has been seriously limited, this means facing the test of meeting new people who work in the park's nature center - and facing it alone. Summer also holds out the possibility of finding her own boyfriend, though Taylour isn't quite sure what that may involve. What she discovers will change her life forever.
Written as an epistolary novel, Wild Orchid is frank but optimistic, literal yet innocent. A courageous wit attends Taylor's gradual emergence as her own person, and the reader will find the exploration of Taylor's mind a revealing and heartwarming encounter.
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Taylour Jane Simon, 18 is facing a sea of changes. She has just graduated from secondary school; her mother's boyfriend has opened a pizza shop some 200 miles away in a small town in Canada and Taylour is expected to spend the summer in that unfamiliar town. This will be especially hard for Taylour because she has Asperger's Syndrome, which is the spectrum partner to autism.
Set in 2002, this book is written in diary format, with the dates making it easy to figure out the year in which these literary events took place.
Taylor's behavior sounds more autistic than Asperger's. She cannot stand the colour orange and sneezes when in a orange room or confronted with orange food and objects; she does not make eye contact; she has routines she has to live by such as everything has to be done 7 times. She insists on sitting in the 7th row in the movies; she insists on taking 7 sips of water, etc.
Some of Taylor's sensory issues were understandable. She hates loud noises; does not like the feel of certain materials and objects and eye contact is an issue. Her social ineptitude is glaring - she discloses the fact that she has Asperger's to people she does not know or know well; she misreads the responses she gets from peers; she has trouble processing information that is presented quickly. Taylour is incredibly naive; she thinks that if she does not hear from someone within a certain timeframe, that person is no longer a friend.
One thing that was easy to see from both sides was early in the book when Taylor's mother, when giving the girl gum told her to offer her some. Taylour complies and her mother turns down the offer. Taylor's bewilderment is understandable -- if told to make an offer, then why turn it down? The mother's response was also understandable -- you make the offer to someone regardless. That was a good example showing the confusion on both sides of a social issue.
Still, Taylour copes. A kind botanist hires her for the summer; he is very tolerant of her and in turn, she learns that just because someone has a bad habit, they are not a bad person. Since Paul smokes, she figures he must be bad to do something she finds abhorrent.
During the summer, Taylour develops a work ethic; learns to stand up for herself and adjust to changes made without any control or warning.
A decent book that shows how confusing social behaviors are for someone on the autism/Asperger's spectrum. Since it is a spectrum, there will be overlapping behaviors and Taylour appeared to fit right in the middle. Her meltdowns; social naivety and routines point her closer to autism. Her high verbal skills, special interests (she has a special interest in flora) and attention to minute detail are all Asperger's behaviors.
Mary Essinger's WOUNDED BIRD OF PARADISE is a good companion book to this one.
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