Reflection on Children's book Education Essay

Reflection on Children's Book: Tomas Loves…
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The picture book Tomas Love...: A rhyming book about Fun, Friendship - and Autism by Jude Welton, illustrated by Jane Telford, is a wonderful story book to show the similarities of children with autism and normal children about almost every aspect of their childhood interest and activities. The book shows the life of Tomas, his interest, and the love he receives from everyone around him, especially his parents and Flynn, his dog. Although the picture book tries to portray and recognize everything about what is common with most children his age, the book fails to show how accepting the differences of another and their right to be unique in their own way is acceptable in society.
The book does not portray the characteristics of a person that has autism. The book tries to mask these characteristics with those of what a normal person would have, such as their hatred of loud noises and hand flapping when stressed. The book also shows only one aspect of what a person with autism would have: their interest, but did not mention other aspects such as their strengths, weaknesses, ambitions and possible contributions to society. A book about autism should have proper emphasis on what makes children with autism different and, at the same time, show what is common. The book should also emphasize on the problems that a child with autism faces and their ways on how to cope with these problems so that the reader could understand rather than pity people with disability in general.
After reading the book for the first time, I felt a slight sense of pity on the character because at the end of the day, the book only talked about what a child with autism loves to do and did not talk about how he will face the difficulties of everyday life. The book also lack self-determination, such as the ambitions of Tomas for the future, to show his uniqueness as a form of strength to move forward in life.
The book did not show other qualities of people with autism such as the ways on how they face the problems of the real world and their abilities to be better than normal people at solving them. Additionally, the book did not show any other opportunities that people with autism has since the setting only focused around their household.
Assuming that I'm a teacher in the future, I would not use this book in a lesson to my students because it does not paint a complete picture about the truth behind people with autism. The book only talks about one aspect of autism that can easily cause confusion to my students, especially, if they are in the lower grade levels.
Instead, I recommend the picture book, The Girl Who Thought in Pictures: The Story of Dr. Temple Grandin by Julia Finley Mosca, illustrated by Daniel Rieley, to show the full story of a person with autism, which includes the problems she faced during her childhood, the way on how she rise above these difficulties, and the her self determination to get a college degree. Additionally, the book shows similarities among people, as well as, accepting differences and uniqueness, and taking advantage of the opportunities. This book also portrays the character with autism as a role model not only to people with ...