Cynthia Lord
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Cynthia Lord is a children's author. A resident of Maine, her debut novel Rules was published by Scholastic, Inc. in 2006 and was a 2007 Newbery Honor book. Winner of the Schneider Family Book Award. Rules is a young adult book, but can be read by a younger audience as well as enjoyed by adults. Cynthia Lord writes in a first-person narrative that engages the reader and charms the mind. Her style is simple, yet meaningful and full of warmth.
Rules is a thoughtful, heartwarming story of a girl struggling to find her place in life. Catherine is caught in the middle of playing second-mother to her autistic younger brother David, and branching out beyond her home to blossom as the teenager she is becoming.
With her best friend gone for the summer, Catherine hopes for a new friend. Life seems perfect when a girl her age, Kristi, moves in next door, except for one thing: David. As much as she loves David, she finds him in the way all too often. So Catherine creates a list of rules for him. Rules include: "You can yell on a playground, but not during dinner" and " Sometimes people don't answer because they didn't hear you. Other times it's because they don't want to hear you."
Catherine also finds a new friend in the waiting room where David's occupational therapy is held. Jason, a boy her age, uses a wheelchair and can't talk. He points to cards with words on them to communicate. Catherine is captivated by Jason, while Jason appreciates the way she treats him as an equal. As Catherine develops the friendships with Krista and Jason, she realizes how hard it is to stay popular while being true to herself and the people she loves. The more rules she writes for David, the more she realizes they are applicable to her, too. And that sometimes in life, the rules are meant to be broken. She recently finished her new novel Touch Blue.
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