RULES

“I click the seat belt across me and open my sketchbook to the back pages. That’s where I keep all the RULES I’m teaching David so if my someday-he’ll-wake-up-a-regular-brother wish doesn’t ever come true, at least he’ll know how the world works, and I won’t have to keep explaining things.”
All twelve year old Catherine wants is a “normal” life. But with an autistic brother she knows that her wish is impossible. Constantly being embarrassed by her brother’s antics she’s created a list of rules in hopes of getting him to act more normal. Her rules are meant to teach David how to act in public but they also teach him the way the world works. “Keep your pants on in public,” “Sometimes people laugh because they like you. But sometimes they laugh to hurt you.”
Over the summer Catherine meets her new neighbor, twelve year old Kristi and finally thinks she’s found the perfect best friend. Someone to laugh and share secrets with and someone to go swimming and hiking with. Things couldn’t be more normal. But then Catherine meets a different sort of friend. Jason is fourteen, in a wheelchair and communicates through a picture book. He too suddenly becomes the perfect best friend. Someone she can laugh and share secrets with, and even someone she can run around outside with.
Catherine’s world is turned upside down with these newfound friendships and she suddenly finds herself asking, “What is normal?” Could normal really just be someone who enjoys life regardless of the situation, or do you need to be fully functional to be normal.
Written through the eyes of a twelve year old girl, Cynthia Lord’s Rules is filled with humor as well as warmth. Through laughter and tears we follow Catherine on her journey towards achieving normalness, and finding acceptance in the most unusual of people. With a little help from two very different people, Catherine may finally see past the rules.