Tuesday, April 27, 2010

The Horse Boy

Last summer I spent a week devouring the book, The Horse Boy, by Rupert Isaacson. It's a story of a father who makes a crazy decision to combine his son's unique connection to horses with his own interest in shamanism and take his wife and his autistic son, Rowan, on a trip to Mongolia to see if it will help Rowan came out of his own isolated world.

The outcome of the story wasn't what held me captivated but just the journey. The journey motivated by a father's deep and intense love for his child. I've been waiting and waiting for the documentary to be released and was so excited to see that once it was released it was also available for instant streaming through Netflix.

Though the book was better than the movie (isn't that always the case?), it was still amazing to watch and I'd recommend it to anyone. I know the saying goes, "You've seen one autistic kid, then you've see one autistic kid", but when I watch movies with children with autism I can always see at least parts of Brian in those kids. The parents' journaling through the movie brought me to tears several times as long as the interviews with professionals in the field, of course anything like this brings me to tears in seconds usually.

So, if you have Netflix I highly recommend adding this to your queue, and if not serach high and low to find it- you won't be disappointed.

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