Rules by Cynthia Lord

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Rules by Cynthia Lord

• By Diane Waid
• Honors Literature

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Newbery Honor book

• 2007

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Genre
contemporary realistic fiction
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Setting

• Maine
• Summer vacation

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Point of View

• First Person

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Main Characters

• Catherine (narrator) a 12-year-old girl who has
  an autistic younger brother and loves to use art
  to express herself.
• David Catherines 8-year-old brother who has
  autism who often embarrasses Catherine with his
  strange behavior.
• Kristi Catherines new next-door neighbor who
  is beautiful and popular.
• Jason A 14-year-old boy that Catherine meets at
  Davids occupational therapy clinic who is
  wheelchair bound and cannot speak.

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Plot Summary

• Catherine, a twelve year-old, struggles to have a
  normal life while taking care of her autistic
  younger brother. She loves to draw and uses this
  talent as a way to express her frustrations with
  her brothers strange behaviors.
• She tries to help him cope by creating a set of
  rules for him, such as Chew with your mouth
  closed and No toys in the fish tank.
• Catherine is excited when she finds out that her
  new neighbor is a girl her own age, but she is
  not sure how this new girl will accept her
  younger brothers unusual behavior.
• Then Catherine befriends a boy in a wheelchair at
  Davids therapy who must use a communication
  board to speak. She finds his board boring with
  only dull words to express himself. She decides
  to draw pictures for his book with better words
  like gross and stinks a big one.
• When Jason asks Catherine to a dance, she has a
  big problemshe has told her friend Kristi about
  Jason, but not about his disability.
• Will she risk her friendship with Kristi and will
  she ever get David to understand the rules?

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Likes and Dislikes

• Focuses on the
  predictable ending
• problems of autism
• Realistic look at
  parents focus more
• brother-sister relationship
  on David than
• Believable
  Catherine

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References

• Picture of book www.daphne.blogs.com
• Picture of newbery award www.franklin.lib.oh.us
• Picture for setting www.amazon.com/cynthia lord
• Picture for point of view www.davidmaculuso.net
• Picture of thumbs up/down www.wikipedia.org