A Child Called Noah: A Family Journey

This book is a wonderful story about a family dealing with a severely handicapped child. The anger, love and desperation all show through Josh's journal entries. Noah never does get better, and you can see the pain this causes his family. There is still no treatment that cures all autistic children, so there are still many families like the Greenfelds.

Noah Jiro Greenfeld, born 7/1/66 appeared to develop normally for the first few months of his life. His story, told from the pages of his own father's diary, is a chronicle of heartbreak and sorrow over watching this child deteriorate in his development. Noah does not walk until he is 27 months old; his speech, seemingly normal the first year of his life virtually comes to a grinding halt before he stops walking; he engages in bizarre, self-stimulating activities such as lint-chasing, curtain chewing and finger flexing. Josh laments that for every accomplishment Noah makes, another skill is lost. Noah is nonverbal for the most part during the years 1966-1971, the period this book covers. He is not fully toilet trained, does not engage in activities with others and remains an enigma to his parents, the professionals and his brother Karl who was born 11/64.The author of this book is also a screenwriter. One of the things that make his "Noah trilogy" so unique is that he was a father who was actively invovled in taking care of the boys as a stay at home parent during a time when that was extremely rare.

Josh Greenfeld is a parent and a writer who tells us of his expierience in rasing an autistic child through the first five years of his life. In a time when autism was fairly new to medicine He includes personal feelings, difficulties family frustrations, and the resentment of doctors who seem to care nothing of the child, but more for labeling and blaming. This book is a must for people who are dealing with an autistic child or know someone who is.