SuitabookThe Boy Who Loves to Lick the Wind
Fiona Carswell
- Reading
- Read it together first, pausing to name different ways people may communicate or experience surroundings. Afterwards, invite the child to discuss friendship, boundaries and helpful responses without expecting one ‘correct’ reaction.
- Themes
- Friendship across difference: Two boys meet during a beach trip and develop a friendship that contains questions, frustrations and confusions. Friendship is presented as compatible with difference and as strengthened by acceptance, understanding and kindness.
- Disability-related difference and experience: The book is connected with autism acceptance and disability, while the author discusses communication difficulties and sensory differences in relation to the story’s inspiration. The story is connected with disability-related difference, but its exact approach and the character’s perspective are not established.
- Worth knowing
- The book’s disability-related focus may prompt questions about autism, sensory experience and communication. The relationship also includes frustration and confusion, so some children may want reassurance that difference need not prevent friendship.