Hello, friends! Our book today is The Girl Who Thought In Pictures: The Story Of Dr. Temple Grandin, written by Julia Finley Mosca and illustrated by Daniel Rieley, a biography of the incredible innovator and activist.

From the start, Temple was different. At three, she had yet to say her first word, didn’t like noises or crowds, and hated to be hugged. A doctor recommends that she be institutionalized, but Temple’s mother refuses, instead surrounding Temple with supportive people who work to help her adapt, and eventually find the right diagnosis: autism. Under the right care, Temple begins to speak, learn, and invent. Finding kinship with the animals at her aunt’s farm, she realizes that they think in the same way she does, using pictures. Her unique perspective allows Temple to devise methods and inventions to treat the animals more humanely and help farms run more efficiently. She becomes a world-renowned expert in animal behavior and earns three degrees. And now, the girl who was told she would never talk flies around the world to give speeches, all because Temple and the people who loved her knew she was “different, not less.”

LOVED this. We’re great admirers of Dr. Grandin and the feminist and ASD role model she is, and this story captured so much of what makes her story inspiring. Told in fun, bouncy, yet often quite powerful rhyme, it shows how the odds were stacked against Temple at many turns – an autistic woman working in the male-dominant STEM and livestock fields – but she refused be regarded as anything less than the genius that she was. The art is wonderful, using simple, adorable characters and plainly laying out complex ideas to connect with little ones, and a wealth of backmatter expands on the details of Temple’s life. The length is great, and JJ loved the animals, colors and engaging rhymes. A phenomenal biography to introduce a true icon, and it’s Baby Bookworm approved!