This book is good for later elementary grades, it is a picture book but has a bit more history to it so it may not interest super young students. This book is about Temple Grandin and her journey with creating her hug machine that helps her to calm down and cope a bit when she is having an episode. In a classroom this would be used as a read aloud to give students some history of a real life story of a girl with autism, and be able to understand that topic better. ( )

Intermediate
The story of Temple Grandin and her hug machine
this is a good way to introduce kids to what autism is like and what they should and shouldn't do

This would be good for primary and intermediate grades. Personally, I wouldn't use this in my classroom because it is telling half-truths. The book is about Temple Grandin and the machine she built to mimic hugs, and because of this machine she then likes hugs from others. ( )

I would use this book for pirmary and early intermediate. It is about temple grandin who has autism. I would use this book to show that it is okay to not like physical touch adn to show the other sides of autism.

Apicture book explores Temple Grandin’s first innovation, a personalized hug machine.

When she was a child, Temple Grandin couldn’t stand hugs. To her, they “felt like being stuffed inside the scratchiest sock in the world.” While she craved the comfort she saw others receiving from hugs, she found physical contact with others to be overstimulating and actively unpleasant. During one summer at her aunt’s ranch, she observed the squeeze chutes that ranchers used to calm cows during examinations and realized she could give it a try herself. She fashioned her own device out of wood and cushions, using a pulley to make it adjustable from within—all the comfort of a hug without the overstimulation! Guglielmo and Tourville present Grandin’s story with respect and enthusiasm. The narrative concludes when her machine breaks. “And she knew that only one thing could cheer her up: // A HUG.” A quote from Grandin concludes the text: “I’m into hugging people now.” While Grandin has become comfortable with hugs, it’s not totally clear how this has come to pass, and for some readers, this ending’s emphasis on neurotypical behavior may feel out of place. Potter’s watercolor illustrations are typical of her style, with flat faces (almost all of them white), realistic colors, and full-bleed spreads. An authors’ note provides more detailed background on Grandin’s life and work, and only here is it mentioned that Grandin is on the autism spectrum.

Imperfect but still lovely. (Picture book/biography. 5-9)

-Kirkus Review