"Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8," by Naoki Higashida

Audience: Young Adult/Adult

Genre: Nonfiction

Overall Content Rating: Clean

Content Warnings

None

Overall Review

Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8 is a book written by Higashida after he's grown up. After writing his first book at age thirteen, you can see the changes in what he's experienced. This book addresses what Higashida has learned in his adult life, what he's faced, and what he's still thinking about. Gone is the 13-year-old, but still present is the longing for people to just understand what it's like to be nonverbal and/or autistic.

Similar to The Reason I Jump (Higashida's first book), this book is separated into sections that have different explanations of different things. Unlike The Reason I Jump, however, this book is essentially split into parts and chapters, making it easier to read and understand, while also providing a sort of fluidity between chapters rather than just answering questions.

Overall, there was a lot of emphasis put on parents and caretakers in this book, and I believe that's what the primary audience is here. While anyone who wants to understand nonverbal autism can read it, this book is geared toward those who are responsible for these incredible people. This is one book that sincerely shares what it's like to struggle with comprehension and verbality and anything along those lines, while still seeming like a person in their own right.

Higashida is one of my favorite autism rep authors to date and I would so recommend this book to anyone wanting to understand autism more. As displayed above, there are no content warnings for this book, so I hope that anyone interested feels the freedom to read this!

Author's Note: This review was originally posted on my other blog, TheFrogBlog, and was changed to fit the purposes of this blog. To see the original blog post, please read: https://www.thefrogblogandfriends.org/post/fall-down-7-times-get-up-8-by-naoki-higashida