The periodic table

I picked up a poster of the periodic table of elements at Dollar Tree last month, and it caused much excitement. FW almost couldn't sleep at night when this poster was in his room. The situation led me on a quest to find books about the periodic table appropriate for a kindergartener with Asperger's.

The Periodic Table: Elements with Style! from Basher/Adrian Dingle, which I found in my local public library, is meant for kids ages 9-12, but suits my supersmart, superlogical, fact-obsessed boy just fine. The periodic table is presented as cast of characters whose personalities reflect the properties of the element they represent. Each description has the right amount of hard science and kiddie fun to make this book a blast to read. The cartoon character created for each element is an added bonus for Asperger's kids who are visual thinkers.

Bug love

FW goes back and forth between different science interests, and now and again he returns to his insect fascination, which began when he was three. Last year, when FW just had to know the names of every type of beetle he found in the yard, we bought him Arthur V. Evans's Field Guide to Insects and Spiders of North America, which is an incredibly complete guidebook intended for adults. Our recent discovery, which is more age-appropriate yet still detailed and amazing, is the Simon & Schuster Children's Guide to Insects and Spiders. Due to its manageable amount of text and big, gorgeous pictures, we can even read this one to FW at bedtime. Then he can drift off to sleep thinking of the beautiful Oleander sphinx moth, or of a bot fly laying eggs in a deer's nostril.

Fake science

FW rarely gets excited about anything--a book, TV show, movie--that isn't "real." He wants to watch documentaries and read science books, but is much less enthusiastic about the other end of the spectrum, fiction. We bridge the gap by seeking out story books with a science-y angle, and one of my favorites is Flanimals, by the brilliant Ricky Gervais.

Flanimals is a field guide to disgusting imaginary creatures, and reminds me, at least in spirit, of the Wacky Packages and Odd Rods of my childhood. In Flanimals, Ricky Gervais creates an alternate universe, complete with detailed "scientific facts," that can draw a logic-obsessed child out of his comfort zone and into the world of pretend. It's not all that far-fetched, really. I mean, once you've learned that our earth truly hosts something called a Hairy Angler, it's not much of a stretch to consider the possibility of a Mernibler, or a Blimble Sprent.

There are several books in the Flanimals empire, and an animated series is in the works.

The Deep Sea

We don't know exactly how FW became interested in creatures of the deep sea, but he did. This has been his primary passion for the past six or seven months, and I've had a lot of fun researching for him, feeding his interest, and learning plenty myself along the way.

We started with the DVD of the BBC production Blue Planet, which has one whole episode about the deep ocean and its freaky inhabitants. Since nothing is more frustrating for FW than a movie or book with cool pictures but no identifying info, we look for things that have a lot of science and a lot of detail. Blue Planet delivers.

After FW had watched Blue Planet about a million times, a friend tipped me off to the absolutely mind-blowing book The Deep by Claire Nouvian. We found it in our local library, but later bought a copy for ourselves. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. The images are haunting and beautiful, and it all really opens your eyes to some of the phenomenal stuff going on in our natural world. The book is published by the University of Chicago Press, and their website has lots to see, and includes some cool, eerie music to go with the images.

Beyond dinosaurs

FW is vaguely interested in fossils and prehistoric stuff, but he's not really into dinosaurs (at least not yet). His passion for deep sea creatures has led to a passing interest in sharks, but what he really wanted to know about was prehistoric sharks. Sigh. How in the world was I going to find a book specifically about prehistoric sharks?

Quite easily, as it turned out, thanks to an incredibly talented guy called Timothy J. Bradley. He has written and illustrated an Aspergerific book called Paleo Sharks that offers enough information to be science-y (and luckily for me, he includes phonetic spellings of the sharks' Latin names) yet is decidedly a kids book, with captivating full-color illustrations and a manageable amount of text. This is always the trick for us: science books meant for adults are interesting to FW, but these are not easy for us to, say, read to him at bedtime. Science books meant for kids are often far too basic and nowhere near accurate and specific enough for FW. Timothy J. Bradley's books--he has another one called Paleo Bugs--are perfect for the elementary school Aspergian.