Check It Out

Title: Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8 : A Young Man's Voice from the Silence of Autism 
Author: Naoki Higashida
Publisher: Random House, 2017

Available for four week check out with your SWC photo ID card.
New Book Area Call Number: RC553.A88 H52 2017


Have you ever been curious about how other people see the world? What is their experience of everyday and unusual things? What does it feel to see color with music, or taste flavors when seeing colors?

Or living with autism?

The first movie that gave me an idea about the inner life of an autistic person was Temple Grandin. There are more movies and documentaries on this page https://www.autismspeaks.org/family-services/resource-library/films-and-documentaries, that shed lights on this developmental disability. The majority of these films were created by people who were filmmakers, and people who had friends or relatives affected by this disorder.

However, the book Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8 was written by a person who is autistic. Naoki Higashida’s autism was labeled severe and nonverbal. Because of this, he uses an alphabet grid to spell out words and sentences, which often can take a long time. Despite these difficulties, he won story-telling contests and published more than 20 books.

David Mitchell, who has a son with autism with similar severity, wrote this in the introduction of this book: “The title Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8 is borrowed from a Japanese proverb about the merits of persistence, and the book offers experience, advice and hope. It pages map the limits placed by nonverbal autism upon its author’s life, but also describe how Naoki has been able to transcend, renegotiate or just learn to live with those same limits. The book shows how a disability can be turned into a field of endeavor and the pursuit of a purposeful life. If this is possible for Naoki, it may be possible for others, too.”

Review by Erika Prange, SWC Librarian