Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism

Imagine being trapped inside a Disney movie and having to learn about life mostly from animated characters dancing across a screen of color. A fantasy? A nightmare? This is the real-life story of Owen Suskind, the son of the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind and his wife, Cornelia. An autistic boy who couldn't speak for years, Owen memorized dozens of Disney movies, turned them into a language to express love and loss, kinship, brotherhood.The family was forced to become animated characters, communicating with him in Disney dialogue and song; until they all emerge, together, revealing how, in darkness, we all literally need stories to survive.

RonSuskind isthe author of four New York Times bestsellers and the critically acclaimed, A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from the Inner City tothe Ivy League. His other books include, Confidence Men, The Way of the World, The One Percent Doctrine and The Price of Loyalty. He was the senior national affairs writer for The Wall Street Journal, where he won the Pulitzer Prize, and is currently the Senior Fellow atHarvard’s Center for Ethics. He lives in Cambridge, Mass., with his wife, Cornelia Kennedy.