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| Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism | 
| Manufacturer: Harmony
Category: EBooks
List Price: $9.95
Buy New: $7.96
You Save: $1.99 (20%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 28440
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.858820092
ASIN: B000FC1AJ8
Publication Date: March 9, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 Insight into an autistic mind November 2, 2005
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I can't imagine how frustrating it would be to have autism and not have been diagnosed until late in life. Once she's diagnosed and realizes "idiosyncrasies" of those around her are more than they seem, I found that interesting.
Anything having to do with animals will hold my attention. The stories of gorillas with the pumpkins and the picnic tablecloth are adorable. Her bond with Congo is unforgetable. This will make you cry.
 What it's like to be a high-functioning autistic October 9, 2005
21 out of 22 found this review helpful
This is a memoir about being autistic and learning to accept and even revel in the uniqueness of being autistic.
Autism, in a sense, is a different strategy. It may be, in its "milder" forms, as that experienced by Dawn Prince-Hughes, who writes so beautifully well, an attempt to adapt to an ancient environment in which social abilities are not as valuable as some other talents. Many autistics would be more at home in the jungle or in woodlands or on the savannas of Africa than non-autistic people. Their ability to concentrate and to sense things acutely would serve them well. And any lack in social skill would not matter.
At least that is my impression after reading this wonderful book by a woman who "went forward by going backwards"--backwards, that is, "into the most primal and ancient part of myself." She had this experience with her "first and best friends, a family of captive gorillas, people of an ancient nation."
On the other hand, the autistic spectrum of disorders may represent imperfect ways of dealing with the world and with others. Usually autistic people are at a disadvantage, especially socially and vocationally, because other people find their behavior inappropriate and unfeeling. Dawn's behavior seemed at times cold and withdrawn and without proper affect. She had to force herself to make eye contact with people and to remind herself to engage in the social niceties. The curious thing about this is that autistics may actually feel things more strongly than the rest of us. The lack of social grace that many autistics display does not mean they are incapable of feeling or that their feelings of love and empathy are less than that of "normal" people. Clearly we can see in this memoir that Dawn has always been a deeply caring person with a great capacity for love.
The problem for some autistics is that they feel things too deeply. Many autistics have senses that are so acute that everyday interactions with other people overwhelm them emotionally. Satchel Paige famously said that "the social ramble ain't restful." He was, in understatement, expressing what Dawn has always felt.
As a child Dawn could repeat conversations verbatim and had a "vast repertoire of commercial jingles" which she would sing. She loved repetition and symmetry, and later as an adult learned from her gorilla friends "the value and beauty of ritual."
She had sensory addictions, as she calls them, to various sights and sounds and tactile sensations. She craved salt and would eat it straight from the shaker; and she would suck on burnt matchheads and "craved Alka-Seltzer for its taste and feel." She loved to smell her grandparents' car and her grandmother's purse. She felt a sense of calm and security in the presence of familiar things. Away from the familiar, she became frightened and insecure. She liked to hide in caves and other places away from people and from the "chaos of noise" all about her.
After a horrendous childhood in which she was abused by peers at school, and an adolescence and young womanhood in which she was often homeless and terribly alone, she found a sense of love and belonging by watching and interacting with gorillas at the zoo. She herself became a gorilla in part, and refers to her kin throughout the book as "people." This of course is part of the political and moral message of the book: the great apes are "people," or at least they should be treated as people and not as inferior animals to be enslaved and experimented upon.
Prince-Hughes's experience with the gentle and peaceful gorillas marked the beginning of her transformation from hopeless misfit to instructor at Western Washington University with a PhD in anthropology. It also helped that she came to understand that she is autistic, and came to accept that she is different from other people. From that understanding she came to realize that she had to consciously make adaptations to better fit in with others, and to make allowances for what they expected and considered proper even though for Dawn some of their expectations were strange and needless.
This is a fascinating, honest, and deeply revealing memoir about what it is like to be autistic.
Eloquent April 13, 2005
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is a well-written autobiography of an autistic person who at times seems doomed to failure, then becomes remarkably successful.
It is much more readable than similar books by Temple Grandin, and more careful about the extent to which her personality is representative of autistics in general.
It is occasionally frustrating that some of her successes seem to involve a good deal of luck, and I'm left wondering whether they were due largely to chance or whether she left out something.
gripping moving tale March 4, 2005
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
I loved this book. It is well written, gripping, moving and inspiring. It helps me understand a friend who has this and increases my admiration for others who struggle with it. I also recommend Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin and Women from Another Planet edited by Jean Miller
Searching for my son I find myself. February 14, 2005
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
I would like to thank the author for this book. My son has SID and is high functioning autistic. In searcing for answers my friend sent me this book for Christmas. It was looking into a mirror. Her childhood so closely followed my own it scared me. Fortunatly after high school my life took a differnt turn and I found help earlier.
But after I put the book down I called to make an appointment with
an autism specialist. I need to be diagnosed. To have an answer to why I am the way I am will be such a relief and enable me to get the help I have needed for 51 years.
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