Book Reviews: PDA, Autism & Neurodivergent Voices

Dive into carefully chosen books that centre **Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA)**, **autism**, and the lived experience of neurodivergence. These are stories, guides, and voices that validate, explain, and expand understanding — from children’s perspectives to parent memoirs and practitioner tools.

Whether you’re a parent, educator, or curious ally, you’ll find reviews that sort the insightful from the superficial — helping you choose books that truly resonate.

Black Rainbow
A fictional novel about a parent who is raising a misunderstood child and who has to dig deep to find her ability to advocate for what her family needs.
Written by Danielle Jata-Hall.
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PDA in the Family: Life After the Lightbulb Moment
An informative and useful resource, written by Steph Curtis from the acclaimed site Steph’s Two Girls.
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Saturdays at Noon
A heartfelt novel by Rachel Marks that touches on PDA themes through the relationship between a father and his neurodivergent son.
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Being Julia
A book review that delves into the journey of Julia Daunt (co-authored by Ruth Fidler) and gives a personal account of what it’s like to live with PDA.
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Helping Your Child with PDA Live a Happier Life
Drawing on personal experience of parenting a child with PDA by author Alice Running, this insightful and informative guide offers strategies and tips for all aspects of daily life, including sensory issues, education and negotiation.
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Pathological Demand Avoidance Syndrome: My Daughter is Not Naughty
After years of misdiagnosis, Jane’s daughter, Mollie, was diagnosed with PDA at the age of seven, and we follow her experiences pre and post diagnosis to age 10 as she attends school, interacts with the outside world and approaches adolescence. This is a very raw account and a great starting resource to better understand how PDA might present.
Written by Jane Sherwin
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PDA by PDAers
This book, compiled by Sally Cat, offers unique insights into PDA directly from the voices of PDA individuals themselves.
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Calendar Girl – The Memoirs of a PDA Child in a Dysfunctional Family
This book deepens our understanding of how a child may struggle to fit into the expectations of society … It helps the reader to consider the essential drive for autonomy in the individual, how that plays out and could present, as well as the dangers of suffocating natural curiosity.
A useful resource from Sally Cat.
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Understanding Pathological Demand Avoidance Syndrome in Children
This straightforward guide offers a complete overview of Pathological Demand Avoidance Syndrome (PDA) and gives practical advice for overcoming the difficulties it poses in a wide range of contexts from diagnosis through to adulthood.
Written by Phil Christie, Margaret Duncan, Zara Healy and Ruth Fidler.
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Collaborative Approaches to Learning for Pupils with PDA
Practical strategies for educators to foster collaboration and understanding in the classroom with PDA students.
Written by Ruth Fidler and Phil Christie.
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The Teacher’s Introduction to Pathological Demand Avoidance
This essential guide for teachers outlines everything you need to know about working with PDA pupils outlining how to adopt a child-centred approach to learning.
Written by Clare Truman
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The Educator’s Experience of Pathological Demand Avoidance
An illustrated guide to PDA and learning written by Laura Kerbey and illustrated by Eliza Fricker.
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The Teen’s Guide to PDA
The first guide to PDA for teens – everything you need to know, written by Laura Kerbey and with illustrations by Eliza Fricker.
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I’m Not Upside Down, I’m Downside Up
A heartfelt exploration of the journey of PDA, seen through the eyes of a neurodivergent child and their parent. This is NOT a boring book about PDA!
Co-authored by Danielle Jata-Hall.
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Can I tell you about Pathological Demand syndrome?
Issy invites readers to learn about PDA from her perspective, helping them to understand how simple, everyday demands can cause her great anxiety and stress.
Written by Ruth Fidler and Phil Christie.
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Me and My PDA: A Guide to Pathological Demand Avoidance for Young People
A resource tailored for children and teenagers to better understand PDA in an accessible and compassionate way.
Written by Gloria Dura-Vila.
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The Panda on PDA
Dr Glòria Dura-Vila has managed to create a resource that will inspire many children to be their authentic self and is highly recommended as a great starting point to introduce PDA to a young audience.
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Super Shamlal: Living and Learning with Pathological Demand Avoidance
A heartwarming story that explains PDA through the lens of Super Shamlal, making it relatable for children and parents alike.
Written by K.I. Al-Ghani.
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Pretty Darn Awesome
The book is written by a PDA parent (Lauren O’Grady) and follows a lovely rhyming pattern as it explores the more social model of autism and PDA.
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Finn and the Forest of Tranquility
A brand-new resource by Nick Farrow – a fellow PDA parent who has designed a self-help/fantasy fiction read for young readers. The author aims to empower and support young people with PDA helping them to explore their emotions in more detail and in an age-appropriate format.
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The Ice-Cream Sundae Guide to Autism
A create guide, written by Debby Elley and Tori Houghton, that uses the analogy of an ice cream sundae to explain Autism to children. This resource makes a complex concept accessible and engaging for a variety of ages.
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Autism, Bullying, and Me
This book (by Emily Lovegrove) is a wonderfully written and useful guide for teenagers, to help them develop understanding and gain tools to cope better with bullying.
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The Spectrum Girl’s Survival Guide
A comprehensive guide for autistic girls, addressing friendships, school, and mental health in an empowering way.
Written by Siena Castellon.
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Having Fun with Feelings on the Autism Spectrum
This activity book is a helpful and creative tool for children aged 4-8 to learn and understand their emotions to help reduce anxiety. It is intended to be used in conjunction with the 10 Steps to Reducing Your Child’s Anxiety on the Autism Spectrum: The CBT-Based ‘Fun with Feelings’ Parent Manual.
Multiple authors
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10 Steps to Reducing Your Child’s Anxiety on the Autism Spectrum
The ‘Fun with Feelings’ programme is designed to help parents support their children with emotional regulation and to decrease anxiety. This guide is structured around 10 stages. The initial four stages prepare parents to implement the programme with their child. These stages help parents understand the causes of anxiety and provide practical strategies for creating a toolbox to reduce anxiety. To be used in conjunction with the book above.
Multiple authors
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Where Do I Start?
How to navigate the emotional journey of autism parenting written by Kate Laine-Toner.
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Why is He Still Here?
Why is He Still Here? by Max Toper is a memoir providing insight into the life of an autistic young person and his experiences in the education-system and digital world.
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M is for Mummy
A very funny and warm book by Katy Cox about what it means to be a parent in an autism household.
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The Mother Load
A not to miss sequel by Katy Cox, following on from the success of her debut novel M is for Mummy.
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I Will Die On This Hill
This book by Meghan Ashburn and Jules Edwards unites both perspectives of autistic adults and autism parents; exploring the rift between these communities and encouraging both sides to work towards a common goal. The book is fully inclusive and voices are also represented from minority communities. This is the way forward if we are ever going to unite as an autism community.
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Life Hacks For a Little Alien
From her first words to her first day at school, Little Alien can’t help but get things wrong. She doesn’t understand the world the way others seem to, and the world doesn’t seem to understand her either. 
Debut novel written by Alice Franklin.
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What We Love Most About Life
A beautiful compilation of autistic voices put together by Chris Bonnello over at Autistic Not Weird.
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A Day With No Words
This children’s book is creatively written by Tiffany Hammond and beautifully illustrated by Kate Cosgrove. It opened up so many questions in our household about what it might mean to be a non-speaking autistic person.
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My Autism Journal
This journal, created by Carly Jones, is aimed at young people to have autonomy over their own feelings and emotions as they look at their autism diagnosis in more depth. The book invites the individual to be leading the process and is very fun and informative in style.
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Now It All Makes Sense

Alex Partridge, founder of UNILAD and LADBible, shares his deeply personal journey of self-discovery, exploring the challenges and revelations of living with ADHD. His honest and raw storytelling sheds light on what it means to embrace who you are, no matter how late the diagnosis comes. This resource brings lots of tips and strategies for anyone wanting to manage the challenges of having ADHD.
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Your Child is Not Broken
An unapologetic, deeply moving manual for parents of neurodivergent children from Heidi Mavir, a late-identified, neurodivergent adult and parent to an autistic/ADHD teenager.
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Can’t Not Won’t
This resource, written and illustrated by Eliza Fricker, is about a child who couldn’t go to school. At the heart of the illustrations is Lexy; an autistic child who is not understood or supported like she should be. This book explores the situation deeper when a child is in the midst of being severely traumatised by a system not designed to help them.
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I didn’t See You There
A poetic journey which delves into the emotional landscape of families supporting neurodivergent children, offering a raw and heartfelt portrayal of both the challenges and the victories.
Written by Charlotte Gale.
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Your Essential Guide to Understanding Sensory Processing Disorder
This quick reference, easy to understand workbook provides just enough sensory information and knowledge to develop a grasp on the basic concepts of sensory integration and sensory processing disorder. This guide is a great resource for parents, caregivers, teachers and other professionals just wanting the basics and essential information to better understand and help those with sensory differences.
Created by Angie Voss, OTR.
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The Neurodivergent Friendly Workbook of DBT Skills
 DBT skills aren’t always accessible, straight-forward or neurodivergent friendly. That’s why this workbook of DBT skills has been reframed to be neurodivergent affirming while incorporating sensory strategies, managing meltdowns, stimming and more. Written and designed by an autistic ADHDer (Sonny Jane Wise) for a more authentic manual.
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Changing Our Minds: How children can take control of their own learning
Changing Our Minds brings together research, theory and practice on learning. It includes interviews with influential thinkers in the field of self-directed education and examples from families alongside practical advice. This essential guide will give you an understanding of why self-directed education makes sense, how it works, and what to do to put it into action yourself.
Written by Naomi Fisher.
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Behaviour Barriers and Beyond: Practical Strategies to Help All Pupils Thrive
This practical resource helps school staff to reframe behaviour as a means of communicating a need, ensuring they can sensitively and effectively support children with a range of Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) needs and Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND).
Written by Rachel Thynne
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The Panicosaurus
Teaching children about why they might experience a fight or flight response and the purpose of why humans have it.
Written by K.I. Al-Ghani.
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The Red Beast
This wonderful, updated resource adds to the author’s repertoire of helpful books dedicated to supporting neurodivergent children. Al-Ghani uses a creative visualisation to help the child by depersonalising the emotion and by teaching the reader strategies in order to take ownership of their anger.
See here for more details.

The Red Beast Anger Workbook
The Red Beast Workbook uses Danni to de-personalise the self-learning aspect of this resource and it really works! The information is in abundance, including opening up the child to all eight areas of their sensory system, whilst cleverly being presented in bite size chunks. This practical workbook is a useful tool for parents, carers and all educators.
Written by K.I. Al-Ghani and Sue Larkey
Click here for more detail.s

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