"Songs of the Gorilla Nation-MyJourney Through Autism"

“Songs of the Gorilla Nation” is a moving and touching story about Dawn Prince-Hughes and her journey through autism. Prince-Hughes was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, when she was thirty-six years old. Throughout her life she struggled with being different. She felt different from other people and she had difficulty communicating with people. Although she was aware of her uniqueness, she never understood why she felt this way. She spent a great deal of her life alone and disconnected from the world. It took her even longer to find out the reason why. She wrote this book about her own autism, which is both like and unlike other people’s autism.

Prince-Hughes had a difficult time growing up. Her condition stopped her from bonding with her family and creating friendships. She found it difficult to relate to other people. She remained alone and thought alone. “I remained both strange and invisible to all those around me” (Prince- Hughes, D. 2004). She felt alienated from the world. It was not until she began to study the gorillas, she began to feel more comfortable in her own skin. She began to study the way they interacted with each other and with humans. She watched how they played, communicated and ate. She watched how they expressed their emotions and how they cared for one another. Prince-Hughes discusses different parts of her social life which she struggled with in her book. From relationships with family and friends, sensory sensitivities and her love of routine, Prince-Hughes shares with the reader the difficulties she faced living with a condition she did not know she had.