A review by nwhyte
With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child Vol.3 by Keiko Tobe

3.0

Third in the series of graphic novels about a Japanese child with autism by the late Keiko Tobe. I found the first half of the book, where a new special education teacher repeatedly fails to rise to the occasion and deal with the needs of the children under her care, really quite tough reading; Sachiko Azuma, the viewpoint character whose child is at the centre of the story, displays much more patience than I could bear to in that situation. The second half of the volume has young Hikaru on a four-day school trip, which presents fairly huge challenges from a developmental psychological point of view. (Tobe throws in a couple of more standard soap-opera elements as well, as his schoolfriends engage in classroom politics and his father is demoted at work, but that's forgiveable local colour.) Anyway, once again a fascinating and beautiful book.