We're kicking off Autism Awareness Month with guest blogger Ryan Ennis, yet another successful WSU SLIS alum. We'll be focusing on Autism and Libraries every Monday throughout the month of April. Stay tuned next Monday for tips on surviving library job interviews with Asperger's!

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Let me introduce myself. My name is Ryan Ennis. I attended Wayne State from 2001-2009 and earned two master's degrees during that time. My first was in Reading Education and the second in Library and Information Science. My goal was to combine my skills as a reading special with that of a media specialist to improve literacy and spark students' reading interests.

By the time I graduated with my second master's in LIS, I had more than ten years of teaching experience under my belt. Nevertheless, my first few years in the profession were still vivid in my thoughts. Though not radical by nature, I started a program that was revolutionary at my school.

At the time, I taught at a school that was unique in the district where I was employed. The school was divided into two wings. The first housed general education classes for students aged five through eleven. The other had classrooms for students with cognitive and autistic impairments, who ranged in age from five to twenty-six. As a progressive educator, I saw the benefits of when typical kids at the school had social interactions with the kids who were enrolled in the special education classrooms. As I supervised the playground with the other teachers, I joyfully watched time and time again as the students from each wing taught each other new skills: for example, how to jump rope, play different ball games, or write new words on the cement with the sidewalk chalk. The playground was "the place to be" for making friends.

Consequently, I started a reading program at the school that the students and I called "buddy reading." The students in my class with special needs looked forward each week to their reading buddies coming to share new storybooks. It amazed me how much the students gained from these experiences, socially and academically.

Most of all, buddy reading taught me and the students about patience and trying. The importance of these educational values cannot be emphasized enough in our world today.

The positive insight I gleaned from setting up peer-tutoring opportunities inspired me to write a book I titled The Thursday Surprise: A Story about Kids and Autism. The story took me approximately a year and a half to write: two months to write the first draft, five or six months to get professional feedback, another month to do the appropriate revisions, then another eight months to find a publisher.

Since that time, over 4,000 copies of the book have been sold, which includes print and electronic copies on Amazon.com. Although I had written articles for journals and newspapers for several years before publishing my first book, I now truly feel like a writer. To promote the cause of autism awareness, I will be speaking at several libraries during April and May. Here is a list of my upcoming events:

Canton Library - April 12 @ 7 p.m.

Oak Park Library - April 17 @ 7p.m.

Ferndale Library - May 1 @ 7 p.m.

Hope to see you there!

*Image taken from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Autism_Awareness_Ribbon.png