To Siri With Love: A Mother, her Autistic Son, and the Kindness of Machines

From the author of the viral New York Times piece “To Siri with Love” comes a collection of touching and hilarious stories about life with a thirteen-year-old boy with autism that offers insights and revelations for all

When Judith Newman shared the story of how Siri, Apple’s electronic personal assistant, helped her son, Gus, who has autism, she received widespread media attention and an outpouring of affection from readers around the world. Basking in the media attention, Gus told anyone who would listen, “I’m a movie star.”

Judith’s story of her son and his bond with Siri was an unusual tribute to technology. While many worry that our electronic gadgets are dumbing us down, she reveals that they can give voice to some, including children with autism, like Gus, who has trouble looking people in the eye, hops when he’s happy and connects with inanimate objects on an empathetic level.

To Siri with Love is a collection of funny, poignant and uplifting stories about an extraordinary child who has helped his parent see and experience the world differently. From the charming (Gus weeping with sympathy for the buses that sat unused while bus drivers were on strike) to the painful (paying $22,000 for a behaviourist to teach Gus how to use a urinal) to the humorous (Gus’s insistence on getting naked during all meals, whether at home or not, because he didn’t want to get his clothes dirty) to the profound (the way an automated assistant helped a boy learn to communicate with the rest of the world), the stories in To Siri with Love open our eyes to the magic and challenges of a life beyond the ordinary.