It’s not Christmas until you’ve seen the John Lewis Christmas Ad (or the Coca Cola ad- which I’ve not actually seen yet- but I don’t watch live TV anymore so I have to look up adverts these days! But I did see it in Picadilly Circus last night)

I thought this years ad was wonderful, and yes I did cry at the end- because of the slogan “show them how much you care”

Excitable Edgar by Lucy Feather and Jo Lindley

Watch the advert here at https://youtu.be/r9D-uvKih_k

In this radio clip, The Additional Needs Blogfather speaks about how he sees Edgar as having additional needs. He says it’s a story about acceptance saying we need to “think about the Edgars that we know and what it’s like to be an Ava”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p07v9p5d

So I thought this blog could feature books to support us and our little ones to understand children with additional needs.

I met, author, Janet O’keefe. Her book, The Ordinariness of Impairment- has inspiring stories about children with special needs.

More to books…

I also spoke to a wonderful Mum who has a child with additional needs, Michelle Miley, who recommends the following books to help support your little ones.

My Super Hero Brain by Christel Land (photo credit: Amazon.co.uk)

For older children, the author was 13 when he wrote it, answering questions on why he behaves the way he does.

The Reason I jump by Naoki Higashida (Photo credit: Amazon.co.uk)

Michelle also really recommended anything by Temple Grandin who has lots of books for adults on supporting your children.

On further research, I found a book with a foreword by Temple:

The Spectrum Girls survival guide by Siena Castellon (Photo credit: Amazon.co.uk)

The book is due to be released in March of 2020 and the author is a 17 year old advocate for autism and anti bullying and is award winning and internationally recognised. I can’t wait for this to come out. For ages 12 and up.