I Can't Stop! A Story about Tourette Syndrome

I Can't Stop! A Story about Tourette's Syndrome
Written by Holly L. Niner and Illustrated by Meryl Treatner
Publisher: Albert Whitman & Company, 2005
Grade:1-4
Theme: Tourette's Syndrome and acceptance

Summary: This book is about a young boy struggling with Tourette's Syndrome. Tourette's Syndrome causes people to do things with your body that you can't help no matter how hard you try not to. Some of these are blinking, sniffling, moving your head, barking and swearing. There is not much you can do for this. Medicine may help, but it has a lot of side effects.

Reflection: This is a great book to read to your class to educate them on Tourette's Syndrome. I read a novel called Front of the Class by Brad Cohen. Brad Cohen wrote about his life dealing with Tourette's. Much of what he wrote sounds very familiar to the information in this book. This book is easy to understand, but some of the pages do have a lot of text on them. I would say this book is appropriate for first grade and older. At the beginning of the book a doctor writes about Tourette's Syndrome. I like that the book stresses that people can be successful with Tourette's. The illustrations are very life like and they really capture the character's facial expressions and body language depending on what situation(s) they are in.

Pre-Reading: Complete a KWL Chart with the class. Asking them what they know about Tourette's, what they wonder and what they learned after reading the book.

Post-Reading: I got this activity from another teacher. She did this with us after we finished The Front of the Class by Brad Cohen. Imagine you are a student with Tourette's. You need to write the Pledge of Allegiance. When ever you hear a knock on the table you need to run your thumb using the hand you are writing with down your cheek, but when a person has Tourette's Syndrome, they could also be Obsessive Compulsive, so you need to cross out every third word and re-write it. You have a minute to write the Pledge of Allegiance. Then we will discuss how difficult of a task this was and how this is what people feel like everyday living with Tourette's. Try this! It is so much harder than it sounds.

About the Author:

Holly L. Niner grew up in Newburgh, NY. She spent most of her time reading as a child. She studied to be a Speech Therapist. She loved reading books to her children. She realized she wanted to write stories children would love. She took a writing course and has published two books. She lives in Indiana with her husband, two children and two cats.