Follow the rules!

Rules by Cnthia Lord

"Rules" is another gem from the Big Bad Wolf (BBW) 2012 book sale. In a big book sale like BBW, I've always look for award-winning books. Rules was awarded with two prestigious awards: the Newberry Honor Book and Schneider Family Book Award. The book is about Catherine, a twelve-year-old girl who has an eight-year-old brother, David, whom has autism. Catherine kept all the rules in her sketchbook for David to learn and know how the world works. She is a lovely narrator who can brilliantly tells her story both in humor and heartbreaking. Catherine shows us how pure and good-hearted can children be. I list down the rules set up by Catherine to his brother David. (Perhaps we can use some, he-he).

1. Follow the rules.
2. Don't run down the clinic hallway.
3. If it's too loud, cover your ears or ask the other person to be quite. (Person with autism hears everything extra loud: milk being poured, shopping carts clanging at the grocery store, etc.)
4. Sometimes you've gotta work with what what you've got.
5. If you don't have the words you need, borrow someone else's.
6. Sometimes things work out, but don't count on it.
7. Saying you'll do something means you have to do it- unless you have a very good excuse.
8. If you can only choose one, pick carefully.
9. At someone else's house, you have to follow their rules.
10. Sometimes people laugh when they like you. But sometimes they laugh to hurt you.
11. Open closet doors carefully. Sometimes things fall out.
12. Sometimes people don't answer because they didn't hear you. Other times it's because they don't want to hear you.
13. No toys in the fish tank.
14. Solving one problem can create another.
15. No dancing unless I'm alone in my room or it's pitch-black dark.
16. Pantless brothers are not my problem.
17. Some people think they know who you are, when they really don't.
18. Late doesn't mean not coming.
19. A real conversation takes two people.
20. If you need to borrow words, Arnold Lobel wrote some good ones.
21. If you want to get out of answering something, pretend you didn't hear.
22. If someone is holding something you want, ask if you can have a turn.
23. When you say something stupid, gloss over it with superfast talking and maybe no one'll notice.
24. Leaving out isn't the same as lying.
25. When you want to get out of answering something, distract the questioner with another question.
26. Call if you're going to be late.