AT THE LIBRARY

Leah McQuire is an information specialist at Idea Exchange in Cambridge. She recommends:

“A Boy made of Blocks” by Keith Stuart (St. Martin’s Press, 400 pages)

I totally fell in love with this wonderful, insightful book! If you like heartwarming tales of figuring out life (think “The Rosie Project” or anything by Jojo Moyes) this is the book for you.

Alex is a good guy but his life is falling apart. He’s been sacked from his soulless job, he’s crashing on a friend’s couch because his wife Jody has kicked him out and he can’t connect with his son Sam. Sam is an eight-year-old with autism, and although Alex loves both his wife and son, he doesn’t know how to connect.

Sam adores the video game “Minecraft” because you can create and control your own world, and the outside world is often scary and incomprehensible to him. As Alex tries to spend more time with Sam, he finds a shared love of “Minecraft” brings them together. And a new world of caring, family and love opens up for all of them.

Based on the author’s own experience with his son Zac, every note rings true. He writes in the afterword that “Minecraft” allowed Zac to express himself and helped his family “to see and appreciate him as a funny, imaginative and perceptive child.” Both thought-provoking and uplifting, this is a great read.