Naoki Higashida was born in Kimitsu, Japan in 1992.
Diagnosed with severe autism when he was five, he subsequently
learned to communicate using a handmade alphabet grid and began to
write poems and short stories. At the age of thirteen he wrote The
Reason I Jump, which was published in Japan in 2007. Its
English translation came out in 2013, and it has now been published
in more than thirty languages. Higashida has since published
several books in Japan, including children’s and picture books,
poems, and essays. The subject of an award-winning Japanese
television documentary in 2014, he continues to give presentations
throughout the country about his experience of autism.
David Mitchell is the author of seven novels, including
Cloud Atlas, The Bone Clocks, and, most recently, Slade House.
KA Yoshida was born in Yamaguchi, Japan, and specialized in
English poetry at Notre Dame Seishin University. KA Yoshida and
David Mitchell live in Ireland with their two children.
“One of the most remarkable books I’ve ever read. It’s truly
moving, eye-opening, incredibly vivid.”—Jon Stewart, The Daily
Show
“Please don’t assume that The Reason I Jump is just another book
for the crowded autism shelf. . . . This is an intimate book, one
that brings readers right into an autistic mind—what it’s like
without boundaries of time, why cues and prompts are necessary, and
why it’s so impossible to hold someone else’s hand. Of course,
there’s a wide range of behavior here; that’s why ‘on the spectrum’
has become such a popular phrase. But by listening to this voice,
we can understand its echoes.”—Chicago Tribune (Editor’s
Choice)
“Amazing times a million.”—Whoopi Goldberg, People
“The Reason I Jump is a Rosetta stone. . . . I had to keep
reminding myself that the author was a thirteen-year-old boy when
he wrote this . . . because the freshness of voice coexists with so
much wisdom. This book takes about ninety minutes to read, and it
will stretch your vision of what it is to be human.”—Andrew
Solomon, The Times (U.K.)
“Extraordinary, moving, and jeweled with epiphanies.”—The Boston
Globe
“Small but profound . . . [Naoki Higashida’s] startling, moving
insights offer a rare look inside the autistic mind.”—Parade
“Surely one of the most remarkable books yet to be featured in
these pages . . . With about one in 88 children identified with an
autism spectrum disorder, and family, friends, and educators hungry
for information, this inspiring book’s continued success seems
inevitable.”—Publishers Weekly
“We have our received ideas, we believe they correspond roughly to
the way things are, then a book comes along that simply blows all
this so-called knowledge out of the water. This is one of them. . .
. An entry into another world.”—Daily Mail (U.K.)
“Every page dismantles another preconception about autism. . . .
Once you understand how Higashida managed to write this book, you
lose your heart to him.”—New Statesman (U.K.)
“Astonishing. The Reason I Jump builds one of the strongest bridges
yet constructed between the world of autism and the neurotypical
world. . . . There are many more questions I’d like to ask Naoki,
but the first words I’d say to him are ‘thank you.’”—The Sunday
Times (U.K.)
“This is a guide to what it feels like to be autistic. . . . In
Mitchell and Yoshida’s translation, [Higashida] comes across as a
thoughtful writer with a lucid simplicity that is both childlike
and lyrical. . . . Higashida is living proof of something we should
all remember: in every autistic child, however cut off and distant
they may outwardly seem, there resides a warm, beating
heart.”—Financial Times (U.K.)
“Higashida’s child’s-eye view of autism is as much a winsome work
of the imagination as it is a user’s manual for parents, carers and
teachers. . . . This book gives us autism from the inside, as we
have never seen it. . . . [Higashida] offers readers eloquent
access into an almost entirely unknown world.”—The Independent
(U.K.)
“The Reason I Jump is a wise, beautiful, intimate and
courageous explanation of autism as it is lived every day by one
remarkable boy. Naoki Higashida takes us ‘behind the mirror’—his
testimony should be read by parents, teachers, siblings, friends,
and anybody who knows and loves an autistic person. I only wish I’d
had this book to defend myself when I was Naoki’s age.”—Tim Page,
author of Parallel Play and professor of journalism and music at
the University of Southern California
“[Higashida] illuminates his autism from within. . . . Anyone
struggling to understand autism will be grateful for the book and
translation.”—Kirkus Reviews
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