The power of storytelling for autistic children and young people

Growing up autistic, it can feel like the whole world is operating on rules you don’t understand, ones they all seem to understand from the off. No one seemed to feel things quite as intensely as I did, and I had the added complication of not knowing I was autistic yet. I didn’t understand most of what was going on, and I didn’t see myself in stories I read or watched either. I knew I was different, but didn’t know why, and I never came across anyone else like me. Finding the right story with someone like me in it could have changed so much for me.

I’m Lizzie Huxley-Jones an autistic author, and reviewer at Inclusive Books for Children. 

What is representation?

Autistic children and young people deserve to see themselves in books, as the heroes, going on adventures, solving problems, and living life on their own terms. I think there’s a kind of magic in that, in knowing that we can be the centre of someone’s story, not just the sibling or someone’s child. Following characters who might experience similar difficulties as us is empowering too; I personally felt relieved the first time I read A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll and realised I wasn’t alone in feeling so passionate about things that other people thought were silly.

Marian Wright Edelman, an American children’s rights advocate, once said, ‘You can’t be what you can’t see.’ She was talking about representation, particularly of Black children, and the way that not having people or characters who look or act or sound like you means you might not think you are the type of person who can do all sorts of things. I think there’s power in people who aren’t autistic reading stories about us too. By empathising with an autistic character, they learn a lot about our real-life experiences. 

How to find good representation

Finding high-quality, inclusive and interesting books can feel really tricky. That’s why the website developed by Inclusive Books for Children (IBC) is such an incredible (and completely free) resource - a vast database of inclusive picture books and chapter books for ages 1 to 9, reviewed by a diverse group of experts in children’s literature.

Here are a few books featuring autistic characters that we at Inclusive Books for Children loved recently.

• This Beach Is Loud! by Samantha Cotterill: an autistic boy enthusiastically prepares for a day at the beach with his dad, only for sensory overstimulation to prove a challenge. Two+ years.
• Talking Is Not My Thing by Rose Robbins: a lovely neuro-affirming slice of life featuring an autistic girl and her sibling exploring different forms of communication. Three+ years.
• Gina Kaminski Saves the Wolf by Craig Barr-Green and Francis Martin: a lively illustrated picture book following Gina’s struggles with overstimulation in the real world as she ventures into Little Red Riding Hood to put her stamp on the story. Three+ years.
• Harriet Hound by Kate Foster and Sophie Beer: three chapter books in one, following an autistic girl and secret superhero whose magical pyjamas can summon dogs from the dog shelter to help solve problems for her neighbours (and hopefully get them adopted). Six+ years. 

Outside of my work at Inclusive Books for Children, I’m an author for children and adults too. I wrote the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize shortlisted trilogy that starts with Vivi Conway and the Sword of Legend, which follows an autistic girl reluctantly dragged into a world of myths, monsters, swords and friendship.  

The best bit about being an author is that I get to read a lot of excellent children’s books featuring neurodivergent characters. 

Here are a few of my favourites for older children aged nine+:

•  Show Us Who You Are by Elle McNicoll: an autistic girl and her new best pal with ADHD face off against the shadowy Pomegranate Technologies who use AI to recreate people as holograms. Nine+ years.
• The Infinite by Patience Agbabi: a four-book series packed with a neurodivergent cast that follows autistic girl Elle as she discovers she is a Leapling, with the power to jump through time. Nine+ years.
• At the End of Everything by Marieke Nijkamp: a group of teenagers housed in a facility for young people builds their own society after a plague pandemic breaks out. One of the three narrators is Logan, a non-speaking autistic girl. 14+ years.

For more information about some of the great books mentioned in this post, and to find other children’s books featuring neurodivergent characters, Inclusive Books For Children.  

About the author

Lizzie Huxley-Jones is an autistic author for children and adults. They are the author of the Vivi Conway series and Sir David Attenborough: A Life Story for Children, and for adults, they write inclusive romances, including Make You Mine This Christmas, Under the Mistletoe with You, and Hits Different, co-written with Tasha Ghouri. They are also a reviewer at Inclusive Books for Children.

Inclusive Books for Children is a UK charity that provides a free website to make it easy for parents to find children’s books that are excellent in their own right, but also offer diverse representation in terms of ethnicity, disability, family structures, gender portrayals, and neurodivergence.  

Each of the hundreds of books on the IBC website is reviewed by experts in children’s literature and inclusivity (with varied backgrounds in teaching, libraries, academia, writing and publishing), so you can be confident that the books chosen are of extremely high quality.