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With The Light: Vol 1: Raising An Autistic Child by Keiko Tobe
01/12/2007 . Source: Phil Jones 
pub: Yen Press/Orbit Books. 563 page hardback. Price: £10.99 (UK), $14.99, $17.25 (CAN). ISBN: 978-0-7595-2356-2. Buy With The Light in the USA - or Buy With The Light in the UK  check out website: www.orbitbooks.co.uk and www.yenpress.co.uk
for more info on Autism see the National Autistic website: www.nas.org.uk
I think many people don't realise how wide the range and depth of topics and subjects Japanese manga covers. We don't get that much in the way of translations, so it's a bit of a surprise to see Yen Press choosing 'With The light' to bring to a western audience. Following on from that thought, you then start to ponder what is a book based around raising an autistic child going to be like? Well-intentioned but misguided, over sentimentalised or a bad educational piece.
Fortunately, though this book works on a number of levels but saying that it's not without a few problems but I'll return to this in a bit. From the introduction, we see a young mother, Sachiko, trying to deal with her difficult 'new' child, Hikaru. She cannot explain his 'odd' behaviour. Constantly crying, he doesn't like physical contact and Sachiko finds it hard to pacify him. Sleeping routine is both difficult and causes problems with her overtly hardworking cold husband, Masato, who does little to help and complains about Hikaru's crying and blames it on Sachiko's mothering abilities. Things are not helped by Sachiko's mother-in-law who lays the blame for Hikaru's behaviour on poor parenting skills by Sachiko.
Sachiko tries her best and initially comes across as a little too good, the perfect wife and mother who just tries to achieve normality in the household. When she is first presented with the idea that Hikaru may have an incurable problem by her doctor, she shies away from it. Things though come to a head when Hikaru disrupts a family event. With hassle from both her husband and mother-in-law, Sachiko decides to seek help again. She goes to the Social Welfare Centre where she finally starts to receive and accept help from the councillors there.
There are various ups and downs. Her husband pushes Sachiko to leave the home, putting his work in front of the family. Its not until he has a breakdown from exhaustion that this acts as a turning point for him. A sort of epiphany. Realising he needs his wife and child and decides to help with the raising of Hikaru, he becomes very pro-active. Even the mother-in-law starts to come round. Sachiko's parents always try to help out especially when she was thrown out.
There are various ups and downs, especially with schooling and jealous and competitive parents. Plenty of people who are unwilling to understand their autistic child. They do come across some people who are very eager to help. After the problems of trying to find a school and try to get Hikaru to integrate more with regular children, Sachiko finally manages to get into a regular school rather than one for disabled children. The special education teacher really tries to understand and help with Hikaru.
Like many autistic children, Hikaru has a tendency to run off, unaware of the dangers around him. One such incident at school leads him to end up in hospital and all the difficulties that presents. There are various challenges and key points where the family learn to communicate better with Hikaru. The book ends on Hikaru and the family coming to terms with the new addition of Hikaru's sister.
So as a book does this work? On the whole, yes but with a few reservations. As a story by the end of the book you are hungry to find out how Hikaru's life, especially with his new sister, is going to pan out. One problem is as the book races through time. It does on occasion seem to jump with problems suddenly being solved. Sachiko does come across as a bit too perfect as do some of the characters later on when them come to terms with Hikaru's autism.
One thing it does do is highlight the key points of autism and the problems associated with them. Although it doesn't make it clear that autism or autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) can have a whole range of severity depending on the individual. Some people with ASD can communicate with speech and function relatively 'normally' whereas others may not be able to speak at all and needing specialist help all their life.
It does get across quite well the difficulty autistic children and adults have with social communication, interaction and imagination, often preferring to stick to the same routine and suffering from varying sensory sensitivity. The fact that body language, tone of voice etc are like a foreign language. They may communicate better with visual communication such as pictures, signs rather than speech. It also outlines how differing individuals have different sensitivities.
It also has some useful pointers and web-links (although some are Japanese) for parents with an autistic child. Also included are a few essays by parents of autistic children. This gives you a bit more of an insight into the problems and joys of raising an autistic child. Also included is a cultural/translation guide and a guide to reading manga (ie read from right to left).
I think some parents with children with autism or, for that matter, any disability or learning disorder may find the ease at which some of the help and schooling difficulties are resolved not sitting completely true with them. I can't comment about Japan, but I know families that have children with various problems and often it causes family break-ups along with finding difficulty in getting the right or any help for that matter. I myself have dyslexia and often find even now people over-simplify learning order conditions. I received very little support through school and it was left up to my parents to get me to read and communicate better. I still have problems with some things having to find my own way of working. I think things have improved since I went to school but still think there's along way to go, especially in making people more aware. Autism isn't immediately obvious as kids look perfectly OK. This book goes some way to re-dressing that. It works as a fictional story, providing emotion, turmoil, struggle and joy in equal measure. I think books like these help to broaden peoples understanding but also provide enjoyment along the way. It would have been good to have some of the book a bit more of Hikaru's point of view as it often focuses more around Sachiko. The drawing is good with significant characters having the classic manga big eyes. Overall, definitely a worthwhile read especially if you have an autistic in your world or even if you don't.
Phil Jones
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