I finished Ron Suskind’s Life, Animated about a week ago. I immediately wanted to get on line and blast everyone a message: read this book, it is amazing! But I decided to let the story sink into my brain and my heart a little longer. A quick read followed by a dashed off, perfunctory review would not do this book justice.

“A mermaid lost her voice in a moment of transformation. So did this silent boy. ‘Juicervoice! Juicervose!’ Owen keeps saying it………. As Cornelia, tears beginning to softly fall whispers, ‘Thank God….he’s in there.’ ”

Life, Animated is the true story of a family’s life with an autistic child as written by the child’s father, Pulitzer Prize wining author Ron Suskind. Owen Suskind was a seemingly normal toddler. In the span of a month, just before his 3^rd birthday, Owen lost his language, social, and some of his gross motor skills. He was later diagnosed with autism. Owen’s saving grace was his love of Disney Animated Movies. The story details how Owen and his family (dad Ron, mom Cornelia and brother Walter) used his affinity for the Disney stories and characters to help re-construct his world from the foundation up.

Ron details the daily struggles to parent an autistic child. The cost in terms of time, money, energy and resources is enormous. It costs the family upward of $90,000 a year for schooling, speech therapy, occupational therapy, play therapy, etc. But the true cost is in the stress it puts on the family. The book does not shy away from the emotional impacts on the family members or the pain and frustration a parent feels with trying to connect with an autistic child. Ron writes with heartbreaking frustration: “This is the crushing pain of autism. Of not being able to know your own child, to share love and laughter with him, to comfort him, to answer his questions.”

The method to reach Owen was revealed in a pivotal scene where his father sneaks into Owen’s room and hides under the bedspread with an Iago puppet. He then channels Iago’s voice and character to talk to Owen. And Owen answers back! For the first time ever, father and son are having a true conversation. The family responds to this development by using the Disney movies – the characters, songs, and dialogue to engage with Owen. The even involve the different therapists and teachers in what they half jokingly call “Disney Therapy.”

“His brain was using Disney to go around the blockages of autism, to find a way. It was using Disney to discover itself; just as he was using Disney to discover himself.”

Over time, Owen uses his affinity for Disney to help learn to understand language, to read (yes, amazingly he motivated himself to practice on the movie credits) to relate emotionally to the people in his life, learn about morality and ethics, and how to interact socially with people.

Ron explains, “It’s not about the wisdom of Disney. It’s about family – sometimes wise, often not – and about the power of story in shaping our lives. Disney provided raw material……….that Owen, with our help, built into a language and a tool kit.”

I highly recommend Life, Animated.  Like every good story, it has amazing twists and turns, triumphs and defeats, heroes, villains, sidekicks (a discussion of which could be its own blog post) and yes love. What is does not have is a Disney fairytale ending as Owen’s story is complicated and far from over. The Suskind family has created a website http://lifeanimated.net to further detail Owen’s journey and to promote the Autism Affinities Project.