Why read Thinking in Pictures?

Book cover of Thinking in Pictures

Book description

The idea that some people think differently, though no less humanly, is explored in this inspiring book. Temple Grandin is a gifted and successful animal scientist, and she is autistic. Here she tells us what it was like to grow up perceiving the world in an entirely concrete and visual…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Thinking in Pictures as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Claire LaZebnik

Author

I still remember when my son’s speech therapist recommended this to me: she warned me that I would find it overwhelming because Temple had such huge challenges.

But I didn’t feel discouraged or overwhelmed at all. Grandin is so uniquely herself from beginning to end, so smart, so aware, so able to figure out both her own needs and those of the animals whose lives (and deaths) she improves, that I found the book totally uplifting, not to mention fascinating.

The fact that she singlehandedly made our slaughterhouses infinitely more humane proves the point my co-author and I are always…

From Claire's list on cherishing and enjoying your neurodivergent child.

Ed Thompson

Author

Grandin, and Thinking in Pictures in particular, provided one of the first of a now rich vein of contribution to neurodiversity-related literature: the personal memoir.

There are now many other such memoirs I could have included in this list, but I chose Thinking in Pictures because of how much I learned from Grandin’s very personal story of growing up as an autistic girl in a non-inclusive, non-aware world, and of how she went on to build an award-winning career by using the powerful thinking of her autistic brain.

From Ed's list on challenging perceptions of neurodiversity.