Books with Neurodiverse Characters (SCPL-YS)

"A sensitive boy gets overwhelmed by all the sights, sounds, and sensations at the beach, but his dad has a trick to help his son face these unexpected obstacles"-- Provided by publisher.

Henry would like to find a friend at school, but for a boy on the autism spectrum, making friends can be difficult, as his efforts are sometimes misinterpreted, or things just go wrong--but Henry keeps trying, and in the end he finds a friend he can play with.

Eleven-year-old Max struggles with his ADHD and making mistakes, so when a mistake leaves one friend in a coma and another shutting him out, Max resolves to find out what really happened that night.

When his veterinarian mom brings home a stray baby skunk that needs rehabilitation before it can be placed in a wild animal shelter, Bat, who has austim, resolves to prove that he is up to the challenge of caring for the skunk permanently.

Eleven-year-old Tally is starting sixth grade at Kingswood Academy and she really wants to fit in, which means somehow hiding her autism, hypersensitivity to touch, and true self, and trying to act "normal" like her former best friend, Layla, who is distancing herself from Tally and her fourteen-year-old sister, Nell, who is always angry with Tally for being different; but as she records her thoughts and anxieties in her coping diary, Tally begins...

"Ellen, an autistic thirteen-year-old, navigates a new city, shifting friendships, a growing crush, and her queer and Jewish identities while on a class trip to Barcelona, Spain"-- Provided by publisher.

Twelve-year-old Ariel Goldberg's life changes when her big sister elopes following the 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision, and she is forced to grapple with both her family's prejudice and the antisemitism she experiences, as she defines her own beliefs.

Maple Mehta-Cohen has been keeping a secret: she can't read all that well. She has an impressive vocabulary and loves dictating stories into her recorder-especially the adventures of a daring sleuth who's half Indian and half Jewish like Maple herself- but words on the page just don't seem to make sense to her. Despite all Maple's clever tricks to hide her troubles with reading, her teacher is on to her, and now Maple has to repeat fifth grade. Maple...

"Emilia Torres has a wandering mind. It's hard for her to follow along at school, and sometimes she forgets to do what her mom or abuela asks. But she remembers what matters: a time when her family was whole and home made sense. When Dad returns from deployment, Emilia expects that her life will get back to normal. Instead, it unravels. Dad shuts himself in the back stall of their family's auto shop to work on an old car. Emilia peeks in on him daily,...

"Maudie McGinn has a secret. It's a big, scary one. And right before Maudie, who's autistic, travels to spend the summer with her dad, her mom makes her promise not to reveal it. As Mom puts it: "A promise is a promise, and must be kept." When a wildfire forces Maudie and her dad to flee to the small beach town where her dad grew up, Maudie's summer is turned upside down. Yet she becomes captivated by the surfers she sees each morning. And as Maudie...