Neurodivergent Characters in Children's Novels

"From the first morning with their odd new teacher, fifth grade is full of shocking surprises for best friends Rip and Red"--

Twelve-year-old genius and outsider Willow Chance must figure out how to connect with other people and find a surrogate family for herself after her parents are killed in a car accident.

"Vivy Cohen wants to play baseball. Ever since her hero, Major League star pitcher VJ Capello, taught her how to throw a knuckleball at a family fun day for kids with autism, she's been perfecting her pitch. And now she knows she's ready to play on a real team. When her social skills teacher makes her write a letter to someone she knows, she writes to VJ and tells him everything about how much she wants to pitch, and how her mom says she can't because...

Ten-year-old Caitlin, who has Asperger's Syndrome, struggles to understand emotions, show empathy, and make friends at school, while at home she seeks closure by working on a project with her father.

Struggling with the challenges of OCD and Asperger's syndrome, Rose, a homonym enthusiast, shares an inseparable bond with a beloved dog, but when the dog goes missing during a storm, Rose is forced to confront the limits of her comfort levels, even if it means leaving her routines and safe places in order to search for her pet.

Lester's first days as a fifth grader at Quarry Elementary School are not even a little bit like he thought they would be -- the cafeteria is too loud for Lester's ears, there are too many kids, and then there's the bully. Lester was always home-schooled, and now he's shocked to be stuck in a school where everything just seems wrong. That's until he hears about the science fair, which goes really well for Lester! But then things go a bit sideways,...

Charlie, twelve, who has autism and obsessive compulsive disorder, must endure a cross-country trip with his siblings and a strange babysitter to visit their father, who will undergo brain surgery.

Maple Mehta-Cohen has been keeping a secret: she can't read all that well. She has an impressive vocabulary and loves dictating stories into her recorder-especially the adventures of a daring sleuth who's half Indian and half Jewish like Maple herself- but words on the page just don't seem to make sense to her. Despite all Maple's clever tricks to hide her troubles with reading, her teacher is on to her, and now Maple has to repeat fifth grade. Maple...

When her mother breaks up with yet another boyfriend, Calliope meets Jinsong at her latest middle school, who becomes her friend despite her Tourette Syndrome and the embarrassment it can cause.

"Emilia Torres has a wandering mind. It's hard for her to follow along at school, and sometimes she forgets to do what her mom or abuela asks. But she remembers what matters: a time when her family was whole and home made sense. When Dad returns from deployment, Emilia expects that her life will get back to normal. Instead, it unravels. Dad shuts himself in the back stall of their family's auto shop to work on an old car. Emilia peeks in on him daily,...