'My Mummy Is Autistic' - six-year-old Cornish boy becomes youngest published author in the UK
Report by Grace Pascoe
At six years old, the best most of us could hope for was one of our stories or illustrations being posted up on our parents' fridge.
But for one little boy from Cornwall, the story he wrote about him and his mum has become a published book - making him the youngest published author in Britain.
Six-year-old Heath Grace got the inspiration for his book 'My Mummy Is Autistic' following an accident in the supermarket.
His mum, Joanna Grace, said: "He was telling me a story and somewhere in the midst of that story he saw one of the things we needed on the list and said stop and jumped off the trolley, but my brain processes language slightly slower than a typical brain and so I was still a couple of sentences back and I didn’t stop and I ran over his foot."
Joanna then explained to Heath how her autism means words take a little longer to line up in her brain.
She said: "He went and got a pen and paper and drew a little picture, it was really clear."
Heath went on to create more images explaining what it is like living with a parent with autism.
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Joanna said: "Eventually when we got all the pictures we sent it to a publisher and they thought it was really good too. It is completely beyond anything we imagined."
What started as a family project has become something much bigger, the published book even contains a foreword from wildlife presenter Chris Packham, who has Asperger’s.
"I feel obnoxiously proud of him, the understanding of what I’ve said is all his, the acceptance of me and my difference is all his and the joyfulness, the celebration that you see in his pictures of we’re different and that’s great, that’s all his," she said.
Heath and Joanna’s book is now being used by other families right around the country to teach children about autism.
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