Can You See Me?

By: Libby Scott and Rebecca Westcott

3/5 Tiger Masks

Tally is autistic. Everyone tells her she's different. Everyone tells her to act normal. The issue is, Tally doesn't know how to do that. She knows she's autistic, but to her, that is normal. Tally's anxiety only increases as she embarks on her journey through middle school. She has a group of friends, but even they act as though everything Tally does is embarrassing. She's studied movies and magazines to try and understand how she's supposed to act. The problem is that none of the actions or behaviors reveal who Tally is as a person. When the bullying in middle school gets worse, Tally feels like she's about to lose it all.

Flipping between diary entries and third person narratives, the reader is fully immersed in Tally's mind. For me, it is the diary entries that saved the book as a whole. Personally, I wasn't a fan of the plot line, but you can hear Scott's voice in those diary entries. It is those entries that help the reader understand autism. Not only that, but they also provide tips and tricks for better understanding either ourselves or those we come into contact with. I would have much rather had a whole book of the diary entries.

While I work with many autistic children and have an autistic brother, I couldn't relate to Tally. I don't know if it was the fact that the audience is children or whether it was the writing itself, but I felt myself with less compassion than I would hope for Tally. That's not to say I didn't cry and cringe for the character, I just thought my connection would be more deep than I was. Perhaps I over-hyped this book for myself, which led to my underwhelming reaction. Regardless of my feelings, however, I think this book is important for all schools to read.

Oftentimes, I found myself thinking does bullying like this really even happen? And then I thought well, if Libby Scott is writing about it, something similar must have happened. And that's completely unacceptable. So, not only do we need to work on accepting all people, but we also need to work on decreasing the amount of bullying. As an educator, the lack of change inflicted by the teachers really made me quite angry. We are better, and Can You See Me? challenges us to do better.

Suggested Pairing: Rules by Cynthia Lord