About the book

Milly’s Mind is a playful, insightful peek inside autism, with a luminous flame of positivity at its heart. 
 
Milly’s Mind is a portrait of an eleven-year-old autistic girl called Milly, navigating the first eleven and a half years of life with autism. It is written from Milly’s perspective and describes how Milly’s autism first presented, how Milly perceives life, the challenges, the joys and a look to the future. 
 
The book has been cobbled together by Milly and her dad Colin. Together they cover and explain: 
 
•  what autism is;
•  stimming and why it’s useful;
•  fixations and what’s behind them;
•  challenges with making friends;
•  challenges with talking;
•  why eye contact often feels weird;
•  why ear covering is useful;
•  being honest;
•  being literalist;
•  meltdowns;
•  when people are unkind;
•  why Milly is not broken; and 
•  what neurotypical people and society as a whole can learn from autistic people. 
 
Milly’s Mind is bursting with insight into autism, with beautiful illustrations by Jo McGivern. And it wouldn’t reflect Milly without a bit of humour thrown in.
 
Milly and her dad think Milly’s Mind is worth sharing with the world.

How Milly’s Mind
came about

Milly’s Mind was born out of an exercise Milly undertook with her wonderful educational and developmental psychologist, Chloe Oen. The exercise was to build on Milly’s self-understanding and knowledge around autism and her own experience. Together they produced a short document called I am Milly in which Milly describes her character and what autism looks and feels like for her. 
 
Over time, Milly and her dad tinkered with I am Milly, adding to it, sculpting it until it became Milly’s Mind, a short book in which Milly and her dad collect and present Milly’s self-reflections along with her life recollections in this fun, engaging and uniquely written book.
 
In addition to writing a beautiful foreword for Milly’s Mind, Chloe Oen also reviewed each draft of the book and provided invaluable guidance around language considerations and diagnostic criteria for autism, for which Colin and Milly are forever grateful.

Learning with some laughter

Milly’s Mind is bursting with insight into autism, with beautiful illustrations by Jo McGivern. And it wouldn’t reflect Milly without a bit of humour thrown in.

Milly and her dad think Milly’s Mind is worth sharing with the world.

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How Milly’s Mind was written

Though Milly’s speech apraxia may steal some words from her mouth and distort others, the way she describes experiences with the words that she does have is blisteringly honest and piercingly insightful. Sometimes heart-warming, sometimes heart-wrenching, but always fascinating.

To build on I am Milly to create Milly’s Mind, Dad helped Milly out with the order of her words and with all the words that don’t matter quite so much (but under strict instructions to get it to rhyme!).

There’s a note from Dad at the start of the book explaining that though the words have been strung together by Dad, using Dad’s language, they reflect the words Milly herself uses and the intent of her language.

Who is Milly's Mind for?

Milly’s Mind is for anyone, of any age, who wants to deepen their understanding of autism, particularly: 

Available from 1st July 2024!

From 1st July 2024, Milly’s Mind will be able to be shipped anywhere in the world by ordering from this website.

Pre Order Australia

Amazon AusBooktopiaAngus & Robertson

Pre Order UK

Amazon UKWaterstonesWH Smith

Enjoy your own copy of the book