Do You Know Me?

Rebecca Westcott and Libby Scott follow an autistic girl through her birthday and the run-up to a week-long school trip in their story for 11 year olds, Do You Know Me?

What happens

Tally Adams is turning twelve. She loves presents and cake. She also can't cope with being TOLD to have fun, and a family standing round watching her unwrap things can tip her right to the edge of a meltdown.

What she really wants is for people to see things from where she's standing. That's pretty much what the book lets your reader do.

The story moves between Tally's days and her own diary. Each diary entry starts with the date, the situation and an anxiety rating out of ten. Her birthday gets an 8. A relaxed afternoon still gets a 4, because there are two days of school left and "anything could happen".

Her diary voice is brilliant. She's funny about grown-up rules and very honest about how her feelings come out as anger at home. She explains demand avoidance in a way that makes it click (and she's quick to say she only speaks for herself).

Then comes the big worry. The whole year is off to GoCamp for five nights. Climbing, kayaking, high ropes, night orienteering. Everyone else is thrilled. Tally has been having nightmares about being dangled off a cliff.

Once they're there, she finds herself in with the most popular girls in the year. They don't seem bothered that she's autistic, which feels like a relief at first. But they're not nice people, and Tally has to decide whether to speak up.

There's so much warmth in her family too. Her big sister Nell can be hard work, and then she chooses a birthday present so perfect that Tally melts. Mum and Dad get it right some days and wrong on others, like real parents do.

If you've got a reader who is autistic, they may well find a lot of themselves in Tally. If they're not, it's a very kind way in to what it might feel like. It's the American edition, so expect Mom, sixth grade and Popsicles.

What to read next

This one follows on from an earlier Tally book, and it's worth starting there if your reader hasn't met her yet. Can You See Me? has Tally at eleven, in the last days of the summer holidays before a brand new school.