Pick Your Own Adventure series and autism

Did you ever get given these for your Christmas as a child and your parents thought they could be thankful for an hour of peace and quiet while you read and they got on with whatever or just had a rest?  Yeah, well!  You may have been too young - lucky you (in my opinion!).  

Now you know, because I have often told you, that I am very different from both Kevin and Johnathan.  And Kevin, bless him, LOVED the books when he was a boy whereas they were an absolute NIGHTMARE for me.  I couldn’t think of any more BORING type of book to read and I was a bookworm!  I would read anything in our house that I could, plus things that my friends had in their house that was different to ours, and library books.

In fact it used to be said that if you wanted to find me you had to find the latest book and I would be there.  And quite likely, I would be!  People could shout my name, but I was in whatever the story was I was imbibing.  (At least, that was what my friend’s Mum told my Mum when she asked what I had for breakfast - she said I had “imbibed two chapters of her daughter’s newest book with a cup of tea”)!

So it wasn’t the fact that I didn’t like books or reading.  I did!  But the thought of going back and forward in the book and then coming to an ending that I didn’t want and then having to go back some way in the different parts of the story to try and discover a new ending was like “OH NO!  That’s ANNOYING!”  And for some reason, the author/s of these book would send you back to the same ending even if you didn’t WANT to reach it again - there were a few routes back and blow me down, I would FIND them!

And I ended up annoyed and discouraged and after attempting to read a few of them, I gave up.  I love books and reading but that - that was my personal idea of reading torture!  

But Kevin and Johnathan are completely different! They LOVE that kind of book/story and try and spend their time finding ALL the different ways you can reach the end.  While I am drooping with amazement at their tenacity.  All I can say is “Autism at its best!”  There is nothing more exciting for them and if you loved them or have a child that does, wonderful, but please don’t send me one!