Duck Days

Written by Sara Leach

Illustrated by Rebecca Bender

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-148-9

120 pp.

Ages 7-11

November 2020

 

Third grader Lauren who is autistic is delighted to have a real friend in Irma, a little girl who'd arrived from Sweden the year before. Still, there is still some hesitation about her first time visiting Irma at her home. A lover of routines and the predictable, Lauren is reminded by her father to "go with the flow" (pg. 10)–which she visualizes with a hand gesture that looks like waves rippling on the water–when things might not necessarily go to plan. However, though Lauren and Irma have much in common, from their interests in insects to a love of reading and Swedish meatballs, a casual statement made by Irma that her neighbour Jonas is her friend sends Lauren's mind off into a tizzy.

 

From Duck Days by Sara Leach, illus. by Rebecca Bender

Lauren utilizes her strategy of focusing on things she likes and her square breathing to stop herself from overreacting but she still politely refuses to play with Jonas, a fifth grader, when he invites them to join him in bike riding and trying out his obstacle course of ramps. 

From Duck Days by Sara Leach, illus. by Rebecca Bender

When all the Grade 3 students learn that they will be participating in a day-long mountain biking event at school, Lauren is unnerved, embarrassed that she still uses training wheels and convinced that she'll never be brave enough to go without. Fortunately with some very gentle nudging from her parents and Irma, a new strategy from Jonas to think like a duck and let words flow off of her like water, Lauren is able to expand her friendships, face her fears about riding her bike with training wheels at school and trying new things.

Author Sara Leach introduced young readers to Lauren, a young child living with Autism Spectrum Disorder, in Slug Days (2017) and Penguin Days (2018) and, with each new story we get to celebrate Lauren's successes in developing coping strategies that give her the comfort to endure typical childhood situations from school to spending time with relatives to making new friends and keeping them. Though it's evident that Lauren becomes uncomfortable with anything that detracts from her routines primarily as a result of her ASD, Sara Leach helps young readers see that anyone can use a little help when having a hard time. Most children do better with routines and the predictable and have worries about friendships and looking foolish. So while Sara Leach helps them understand some of the challenges faced by children with ASD, she also encourages them to find coping strategies, including visualization and focusing on breathing, to help get through uncomfortable or irregular circumstances.

From Duck Days by Sara Leach, illus. by Rebecca Bender

Accompanied by the charming pencil and digitally-rendered artwork of Rebecca Bender whose illustrations have graced her own picture books like Giraffe and Bird Together Again and How Do You Feel?, Duck Days will captivate early readers with both the familiarity and distinction of Lauren's circumstances and recognize that being brave is in everyone.

 

Penguin Days

Written by Sara Leach

Illustrated by Rebecca Bender

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-053-6

104 pp.

Ages 7-10

November 2018

Eight-year-old Lauren of Sara Leach's Slug Days (Pajama Press, 2017) has returned and now the young child on the autism spectrum must find new coping strategies beyond the school and home situations with which she contended in her first book.

From Penguin Days by Sara Leach, illus. by Rebecca Bender

Lauren and her parents and baby sister Lexi have driven from western Canada to North Dakota for the wedding of her Auntie Joss, who is getting married to Almost-Uncle Charlie. It's a long drive but far better than a repeat of the screaming plane fiasco years earlier. But the travel stress is just step one in the journey that Lauren must take to act as Auntie Joss's flower girl. She must also prepare herself for the many people who will be present, including her cousins: Sophia, 12; Zoe, 10; and Kevin, 9.

I didn't want to have a restful summer. I wanted to have a fun summer with Irma ... I had to meet my cousins instead. Which wasn't restful at all. It made my insides feel like squirmy snakes. (pg. 25)

But Lauren's unrest moves into the realm of confusion when Kevin mentions that he has to wear a penguin suit (slang for a tuxedo) and Lauren thinks wearing a penguin onesie would be preferable to the itchy purple flower girl dress she must wear. Unfortunately, when she learns that Zoe and Sophia will also be flower girls, and she twirls in her dress like Sophia, she makes herself dizzy and throws up.

From Penguin Days by Sara Leach, illus. by Rebecca Bender

The reactions of those around her embarrass her and she dashes outside and encounters Kevin who takes her to see the cows in the barn. Though he warns her about being in the barn, she climbs onto fence and falls into a stall with calves. In the mayhem of her screaming, the calves run out and Almost-Uncle Charlie comes to the rescue.

From Penguin Days by Sara Leach, illus. by Rebecca Bender

From the dress to the barn and the rehearsal and its dinner, things always get resolved when Lauren remembers to use her strategies like square breathing or focusing on things she likes to talk about, like lizards and penguins, and when those around her consider how stressful new situations are for her and attempt to make things work for Lauren. But there are many circumstances which Lauren must endure first in order to get through to the other side of okay. Thankfully Sara Leach shows us that Lauren can have slug days when everything goes wrong, and penguin days when she has to dress up and get along with people she rarely sees, and still have wonderful butterfly days when all is right with the world. With the addition of Rebecca Bender's charming black-and-white illustrations that depict Lauren in all her moods, Penguin Days becomes a story of resiliency and overcoming anxiety and stressful situations for all children, with ASD and not.

From Penguin Days by Sara Leach, illus. by Rebecca Bender

Slug Days

Written by Sara Leach

Illustrated by Rebecca Bender

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-022-2

120 pp.

Ages 7-10

October 2017

Slug Days is told in the first-person narrative of a young girl on the Autism Spectrum Disorder. Lauren, who is probably seven or eight years of age, gives her commentary on several days at school and home, recounting both her slug days when she feels slow and slimy and people get angry with her and her occasional but glorious butterfly days, when she earns stickers in her school agenda and goes for ice cream with her mom.  Sadly, there is much that breaks Lauren’s routines and confuses her sensibilities resulting in those icky slug days: her bus driver is away, someone is sitting in her bus seat, her shoelace bows don’t match, she misses reading time, or her classmates don’t want to play with her.

From Slug Days 

by Sara Leach 

illus. by Rebecca Bender

Even though her teachers know the behaviours typical of ASD and how best to help her, Lauren doesn’t always interpret their actions as helpful, challenging them and even being convinced that they make her have slug days.  When a new girl from Sweden joins the class, Lauren comes to understand that she has the capacity to make butterfly days for herself and someone else.

From Slug Days 

by Sara Leach 

illus. by Rebecca Bender

Sara Leach makes Lauren’s voice young and blatant, focusing on what is important to the child and often ignoring what others deem priorities.  Who the girl is, is undisguised.  She needs her routines and obsesses about things that others might ignore.  She finds security in sticky messes and speaks her mind in an effort to be honest not disrespectful or challenging.  It's usually how others respond to her that gives her the most grief.  Often times she is misunderstood or challenged or ridiculed for her differences and, though she can overlook much, as a strategy to coping, she is as affected by others as most of us are, sadly leading to those slug days.

The voice is the most compelling element of Sara Leach's Slug Days, as it should be.  Here is Lauren's story, up close and personal.  Whether readers can empathize is not on Sara Leach but on the readers themselves because the author makes it clear and it is an arresting text spoken true by a child on the spectrum. Regardless, it’s evident that Lauren's life is full and complex and often wholly unpredictable.  But, with an arsenal of strategies, she will hopefully have fewer slug days and expand her days, as well as those around her, to those of butterflies.



(A version of this review was originally written for and published in Quill & Quire, as noted in the citation below.)



Kubiw, H. (2017, October). [Review of the book Slug Days by Sara Leach]. Quill & Quire, 83 (8): 26.