Review: The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

In Temple Grandin’s review of The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida, she relates her own experience living with and studying autism to better understand the mind of a remarkable 13-year-old Japanese boy with severe autism. Structured as a series of questions that a nonautistic person might ask an autistic one, Naoki’s book is translated by David Mitchell (author of the novel Cloud Atlas) and his wife, Keiko Yoshida, and contains an impassioned introduction in which Mitchell discusses his experience with his own autistic child.