The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida and David Mitchell

At the time of the writing of this book, Naoki was a 13 year old severely autistic boy in Japan. Although he has very limited communication skills, his mother and teacher have taught him to use a an alphabet grid to share his thoughts.  He has revealed himself to be an intelligent, articulate, very self aware young man.  Mitchell is the father of an autistic son.  His Japanese wife discovered the original text doing research about their own son and did most of the translating.  It is an enlightening series of questions answered with great insight by Naoki - in many ways flying directly in the face of much of the current thinking about autism.  Mitchell writes the preface explaining Naoki's situation and his own life changing reading of the book.  Following the question / answer style of the main text is one of the stories Naoki wrote himself.  Fascinating reading.