This well-paced novel about Eddy, a middle-school boy, helps you to understand the struggles of living with Autism.  Eddy has a brilliant mind for science.  He knows the scientific Latin name for all plants and animals.  He has an incredible memory for facts — the story is interrupted often with “Random Access Memory of Edison Thomas” facts.  When Eddy makes mistakes, as middle schoolers often do, he recites the period table to calm himself down.

Eddy becomes obsessed with the fact that a traffic policeman loses his job, causing an unsafe crossing intersection for pedestrians.  To deal with his stress, he puts his inventive mind to work, taking parts of various pieces of machinery and a garden hose and devising a traffic-calming device.  Proud of Eddy one moment, and embarrassed for him as  he deals with bullies the next, the reader easily gets caught up in the emotions of Eddy’s life.