Rules

By: Cynthia Lord

This realistic fiction novel begins by introducing readers to David and Catherine. Catherine, a 12 year old girl, is David's big sister. David is autistic and so Catherine tries to spend time teaching David " Rules". Rules like, "no toys in the fish tank." , or "if you say something over and over maybe they'll give into shut you up." Catherine has felt like she has to constantly take care of her brother and his actions. Catherine really just wants to blend in, have friends, and "have a normal brother." Throughout the book we see Catherine form a new and unexpected friendship with Jason, a guy from Davids occupational therapy. By creating word cards for him and hanging out with him, Catherine begins to become more accepting of peoples differences instead of embarrassed. Through hanging out with the new next door neighbor; Jason, Catherine grows to not care about what people say or try to "blend in" with everyone else. In the end we see Catherine becoming more accepting of differences and more understanding of her brother disability.

Opinion: This is a fantastic book! I think that Cynthia Lord style, vocabulary, choice of characters and dialogue all contributed effectively into creating a very powerful novel! I loved being able to see the effect of her brothers disability on the family – it was a new perspective!

Classroom Activity: Have students discuss the book amongst a small reading group. In the group students should summarize the book and discuss any thing they found shocking or etc. Another activity that that students could do is to pretend to be Catherine. Students would pretend to be going through the same events Catherine does and then write a journal entry about how she feels about her brother and some rules that might need to be added to the list.