WARNING: Good Elements and Harmful Ones

When I just started learning about autism, this book was a joy to read. I thought this was a cute book. It's cute, sweet, and insightful. The rhyming and consistent rhythm made the book flow nicely. It was pleasing and gentle to the ear as I read it aloud to my child. The illustrations are simple and clear. Drawn in a childlike style that invites the reader to be in the story next to Gabriella. I could feel the parent's love for the child. The story calmly opened the inner world of an autistic child, allowing you to get a glimpse of their experience as you tagged along on a adventure with her.

Ignorantly, I would have recommend this book anyone with small children or individuals who want a non-threatening gateway introduction to autism. I love how this conveys how autistic children have a rich inner world. And may be delayed in responded to outside persons because there is more they are processing than we perceive.

I would NOT recommend this book. There are harmful ideas in this book that have actively hurt the autism community that I do not think the author is aware of.

Lovely story about a young girl with autism. I enjoyed it and found it helpful but felt there was something missing, perhaps a little too simplistic at times. Definitely worth reading though.

Thank you so much to Indigo River Publishing and Netgalley for the ebook to read and review.

This was so beautiful and magical, what a precious way of sharing a story about an autistic child and their deep wild imaginations that they just cannot share with others. It’s a great book for sharing and to helping other children understand them just a little bit more.

Gabriella escapes into her lands within her mind, saving the day, making friends and stopping chocolate eating monsters. These are just all in her mind and are her incredibly magical lands only she creates and can form with very little to start making the world. She sits quietly before others but her mind is having an adventure.

It such a sweet story and it’s illustrations were so adorable they looked hand drawn and were so cute, they really added an extra effect into the story. I love that a book about an autistic child like this exists it’s so important as so many children have it and so many children still don’t understand it.

This book a perfect book to share with a young child due to the lessons they could learn from it and understanding they could gain, but also because it was such a fun adventure and a really sweet to look at too.

I really enjoyed reading this book about Gabriella, who is an autistic child who has lots of adventures inside her mind. We are taken inside her mind to see all of the adventures that she goes on, and this really opened my eyes to what goes on inside some autistic children's minds. It is wonderful to see that even though they are quiet and shy, and do not want to go outside much or communicate with other people much, they still have a lot of fun within themselves, in their own world.

The graphics in the book are lovely, as they are hand drawn. The text is told in a rhyming fashion, which is fun. I highly recommend this beautiful book.

Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for a copy of this book.

Yes! Absolutely yes! I cannot express how much I LOVE books with neurodivergent characters that focus on them as a person and not just their neurotype. It is so important to have this positive representation. I also think the coloring page at the beginning of the book is the sweetest considering the way the illustrations are done!

Loving child-friendly illustrations that reminded me of my childhood books. However this story needs work on their punctuation, particularly their adding of commas.

Cute, love the sentence structure and rhyming twists.

Rated: Two stars

Thank you to netgallery for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Quiet Princess was a sweet story about a girl with autism. She travels to exciting lands of adventure in her mind. This book would be great to teach children not to judge others who may appear different.

I really disliked the font choice, it made the words harder to read.

* Thanks to Netgalley for an copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Written in verse, The Quiet Princess by Natalie Rainbolt seeks to explain some of the common characteristics of Autism Spectrum Disorder to younger audiences. Children with Autism might find it hard to communicate with their peers, seem indifferent and unresponsive in class often coming across as distant and rude. To ensure safe and secure environment for every child, it is essential to give kids a basic introduction on Autism especially those who have Autistic children in their surroundings. Keeping them in the dark may lead to inaccurate conclusions. Books like The Quiet Princess make the process easier. In the story, we meet Gabriella who acts slightly different from others and accompany her in her journeys to the land of chocolate sea. She can conjure up magical realms in her mind by only looking at fingerprints and so on. With compassion and warmth, the author relays an important message that irrespective of any differences, autistic children are unique and have exceptional abilities. The book is not 100% accurate but serves its purpose well. Learning Gabriella's story can be a great resource in enlightening young kids on Autism and spreading awareness. Also I loved the illustrations! They are childish and super cute.

This short graphic books takes us into the imagination of an autistic child named Gabriella where she goes on different adventures in her mind shows us that everyone has their own unique gift in life .

I'm an actually autistic adult reviewing this.

- Good storyline, though rhyme doesn't make sense a few times

- I have issue with "special" re: autistic children. Children grow up being told they're special, but there is a lot of emphasis on telling autistic children they're special, to the point that it creates a sort of specialness. Then you grow up to learn you're not special at all, which creates a struggle you didn't need in the first place. There is this whole messaging in the autism community (remember: that's different from the autistic community). This is a whole can of worms, but I feel like calling autistic people "special" is a slippery slope to "special needs".

- I was ready to recommend this book to bits until the puzzle piece/key reference. Please STOP insinuating that autistic people are puzzle pieces or that there's a key only autistic people have! There's not. We're not puzzle pieces. Autism is simply a different neurotype.

- Autistic is not a bad word, and I think that the way to truly spread acceptance more is by using the word more often, in everyday life. This book reads like it was written by a non-autistic person, though some digging led to me finding the author was diagnosed autistic shortly after her son. There is such a thing as internalized ableism, and I have found most reviews of The Quiet Princess are by non-autistic people. I just really feel that the author should connect more with the autistic community instead of trying to please the autism community, unless this was a publisher's call.

- In the illustrations, lines from the previous page are visible where there is apparently actual crayon coloring. It gave me the impression that this book was illustrated from the same notebook or stack of paper. Someone else might find that detail unprofessional, but I rather appreciated the small detail. As an autistic child, it always fascinated me that I could color a sheet that had been under some writing or something, and see what had been written. It's what made me want to be a forensic investigator until I found out I'd have to deal with blood. 😅

- I rated this 3/5 because the premise is that the child is special because she's autistic, and I just...I don't know how to articulate that that messaging rubs me the wrong way. Autism is just a different neurotype, just like ADHD and HD autistic people, etc. Rather than saying that a neurotype makes someone special -- when so many of your traits are because of your neurotype -- why not stomp that out altogether and say that the things that make you unique are special? Not all of us are savants. It paints autistic children as potentially being heroes when they could instead be wondering about how better those children's books would be if they were arranged by height. Or why their peers can sit still and listen, instead of needing paper to crinkle. Autistic people are going to spend much of their lives being asked what talents they have, with the expectations by everyone around them that they are amazing like the well-known autistic people admired by allistics.

Pros: I love that children's books are becoming more and more inclusive of their audience and intentionally featuring children of different races, religions, abilities, etc This book features a neurodivergent child as its main character, which I love because I'm sure there are autistic children who will have never seen themselves reflected in a book until they read this book. And in this book their specialness is celebrated! Because of the style of the illustrations, I can see there being a coloring book version of this book.

Cons: None that I can think of.

Thank you to NetGalley and Indigo River Publishing for the opportunity to read this book!

I deeply enjoyed this book. From the sweetness, to the creativity, to the illustrations definitely a five star read!

Such a sweet book to read to your littles for bedtime that has such good representation of the autistic community and how kids are still the same no matter what. I really enjoyed reading this book to my babies and they loved it too!!

What a wonderful book to help explain autism to children and help autistic children feel like there is a book that represents them. I think the story line was really sweet and well done. The reason I’m not giving it five stars is the artwork did leave me a little disappointed.