The bonus about it being so basic is that it's, as mentioned above, a very quick read, which is a great benefit when you want someone to learn about Asperger Syndrome but that someone isn't real keen on reading, or has many demands on their time allowing them less time to devote to reading a book about Asperger Syndrome.

I gave a copy of this book to a 16 year old boy who lives in the neighborhood who somewhat watches out for our son and the other kids on the street. I had a talk with him before giving him the book and it was interesting to hear about the behaviors that he had already observed in our son.

I was able to reference a section in this book for every issue that this boy raised about our son and I do believe that the book, even as basic as it is, will help him understand more about Asperger Syndrome and our son.

I haven't yet had a chance to go back to him to ask him what he thought about it but today he actually dueled with Yu-Gi-Oh cards with our son. Yu-Gi-Oh is our son's #1 interest (actually it ties for #1 with binders and dividers) and the fact that this 16 year old boy would take time out of his afternoon to do this with our son just touched my heart.

There's only 48 pages in the entire book and slightly over half have text on them. The other pages have the cartoon illustrations or the list of resources included in the back of the book. The text is large and it's definitely a quick-read book.

I haven't been able to interest our son in sitting down with me to read it but I haven't been able to interest him in most any books so this isn't surprising. I know that when I can finally convince him I'm pretty sure he'll gain a better understanding of what he's dealing with, and it'll be short and as 'painless' as possible.

I'd recommend this book for a few reasons...

1. It's relatively inexpensive which might allow you to purchase a few to hand them out, even to teachers. You could even add notes in the margins in the sections of the book that are more specific to your child's issues to help readers to zero in on the specifics of what your child is dealing with.

2. Because it's written as simply as it is, it's a pretty quick read which will make it easier for anyone, kids and adults, to be able to learn a bit about Asperger Syndrome without having to invest a whole bunch of time.

3. Because it's about Asperger Syndrome and helping others to understand and accept Aspies and in my opinion anything written about Asperger Syndrome is good. Why? Because the various symptoms of AS can vary so much from Aspie to Aspie, we need to read as many perspectives as we can to gain the best understanding of our children that we can.

We recommend this book - Can I tell you about Asperger Syndrome by Jude Welton - as a good start of, or addition to, the arsenal of tools you put together to help others to understand your child and his/her Asperger's Syndrome. :)