The history of autism is a winding road of pain, love and inspiration that is told beautifully in John Donvan and Caren Zucker’s In A Different Key. Tracing the history of autism from the first diagnoses to the most recent form of advocacy, the neurodiversity movement, Donvan and Zucker capture perfectly the spectrum of autism as a biological factor in a person’s life as well as an historical arc.

Donvan and Zucker provide hard facts in an appealing and approachable manner, writing In A Different Key as if it were a novel. The doctors, parents and children profiled in the book take on the personas of characters as the reader sits on the edge of her seat eager to find out just how good or bad things will turn out. The authors take a tough topic with a dark history and turn it into a compelling work of informative and insightful literature.

The objectivity that In A Different Key puts forth is refreshing for a conversation that is usually weighted heavily toward one argument or another. Among the many controversies in the autism community that Donvan and Zucker bring up is the vaccine scare. Instead of attacking one side or the other, the authors present the case as hard facts and let the reader draw from the available evidence to make his own decision on the matter.

The book ends with a spin toward the positive by bringing attention to the most recent movement in the autism community. Neurodiversity is an idea headed by autistic individuals who claim that autism is a part of their biological makeup and they are happy to be autistic: they don’t want to be cured, they don’t want sympathy, they simply want acceptance. While Donvan and Zucker bring attention to the issues even within this movement in regards to more severely handicapped autistic people, In A Different Key still closes its pages with an inspiring and hopeful message.

Published by Crown Publishers in 2016 you can purchase In A Different Key at your local bookstore.

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FTC Disclaimer: This book was given to me in return for a fair and honest review of the text.