Day with No Words

A Day With No Words was written by Tiffany Hammond and illustrated by Kate Cosgrove. This book was publish in 2023 and received the Dolly Gray Children’s Literature Award (2024) and was on the Center for the Study of Multicultural Children's Literature Best Books (2023). In addition to this, it was New York Time’s #1 Best Selling Picture book! This book’s main character is a boy named Aidan who is autistic and nonverbal. The book shows the reader what it is like to spend a day existing as Aidan. The book starts off with Aidan waking up in the morning, walking to the park, playing at the park, and then going to get food at a fast food place. All are common experiences many children have with their parents. However, the reader gets to see from Aidan’s perspective as Aidan shares his thoughts throughout the story. Aidan understands and uses words but doesn’t use his voice to speak words. Instead, Aidan uses his device to push buttons that represent the images/words he is communicating. Throughout the story Aidan is able to be fully aware of the details of everyday life. He hears many voices and relates them to storms, whipped cream, waves, and air. This shows the wide spectrum of voice range and communication. This pairs nicely with the colors and tones used in the illustrations to show the wide range of voices and emotions associated with them. It also parallels Aidan’s feelings/response to the different voices he hears. Aidan is self-aware that he does things that people do not understand. The relationship between Aidan and his mom is strong as she is in tune with what comforts him versus what makes him anxious. When his mom takes him to the park, the illustration of the other mothers nearby with their children portrays the misunderstandings of children with autism as one mother sneers “That boy is handicapped” when Aidan flaps. One mom is holding her son to protect him from Aidan. Another mom looks like she is showing pity on Aidan and his mom as her daughter hides behind her. Later in the story, Aidan’s mom uses her own tablet when ordering food at a fast food restaurant. Aidan’s mom uses the device just like Aidan to model navigating communication with a verbal world. This book highlights the challenges a nonspeaking individual faces. With support of the illustrations this picture book also shows how humans constantly use nonverbal communication as well (facial expressions, hand gestures, touch, and written word). Messages can be heard without having a voice. The illustrations have different tones of color used to contrast the thoughts, feelings, wants, needs, and voices within a community. They also show how Aidan perceives all the voices and noise around him. He has a cunning sense of perception! This book helps to foster an understanding and acceptance of people like Aidan. This book can be seen as a contemporary fiction picture book because it takes place in modern society with use of the tablet device for communication instead of just picture cards from previous decades. It also has the theme of disability through representation of Aidan as a nonverbal autistic child. Many books are written to explain the nature of a disability. This picture book offered perspective from a nonverbal child and showed diversity in how all humans communicate. I found this book to be a respectful representation of disability that could be suitable for primary to intermediate elementary students. I would use this book to discuss the themes of communication beyond spoken words, patience, understanding, acceptance, autism awareness, and inclusion. Since this book focuses on the community, I would use this book as an introduction for a class community action project. Community action projects would be used to either spread awareness or provide a sense of acceptance and belonging within the community. Another way I would use this book is by focusing on the theme of communication. This can be used across all subject areas. I would put students in groups to present on a topic. However, they will not be able to use words. They will have to be creative and use other forms of communication (sounds, gestures, facial expressions, pictures, etc.) to convey their feelings/message. Afterwards, we will discuss the different modes of communication from both the presenter and audience member’s perspective. For an art class, students can do an illustrator study! Students can be provided with different voices/sounds and draw their emotional response to each sound using different colors. This would be great for a mindfulness activity too for social emotional-learning! Overall, this book offers a sense of belonging for nonverbal students and would be beneficial to add to any classroom library!