Lisa & David/Jordi

by Theodore Isaac Rubin

Two stories about children who are emotionally different.

Jordi has trouble trusting others and is afraid of a lot of things. With the help of a committed teacher he learns to trust and to distinguish between things that are harmless and those that may not be.

David is an aloof child who isn't interested in other people, but he becomes fascinated with Lisa, who speaks in rhyme and appears to have a second personality.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Psychology, Young Adult, Literature, Short Stories

144 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 1, 1962

About the author

Theodore Isaac Rubin, M.D., has served as president of the American Institute of Psychoanalysis and is the author of thirty books, including The Angry Book, Lisa and David, Jordi, The Winner's Notebook, and Lisa and David Today. His books have been translated all over the world. He lives and practices psychiatry in New York City.

Reviews

[Chip · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up from someone's discard pile - It's three case studies of adolescent mental illness, suggestive of schizophrenia, written in the early 1970s. This was, of course, before the DSM. These children may have been diagnosed as schizophrenic but they appear to me to be clearly autistic. The author's biases emphasize the symptoms that support his diagnosis, but forty years later it's clear that the children are autistic. Said to be true accounts about real patients, I feel sorry for the kids, who likely never received any helpful treatment. This is an interesting book for highlighting how far we've come in the diagnosis and treatment of Autism-related disorders. The work is dated, certainly, but might be worth a follow-up book which details how the kids' lives turned out. A re-issue, augmented, with a happy ending, hopefully.

[Lisa Vegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book for the first time when I was a young teen. It’s 2 (a bit intertwined) novellas about mentally ill children. Jordi is about a young psychotic boy and Lisa & David are 2 mentally ill teens (she schizophrenic, he obsessive-compulsive) in a residential treatment center, who manage to be of great help in each other’s healing. Beautiful stories that inspired me to want to help children. Written by a psychiatrist in an era when psychotherapy was the treatment of choice, I imagine this story is dated, but still lovely and worth reading.

[Karina Vargas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jordi : ¡4 estrellas!
Lisa & David : 3,5 estrellas.

Jordi es un nene con esquizofrenia y algunos rasgos de autismo, entre otras enfermedades mentales. La historia es breve, pero suficiente, y cuenta sobre su vida, la relación con sus padres, su entorno y su ingreso en un instituto psiquiátrico para chicos.
Por su parte, Lisa & David se trata también de dos adolescentes con problemas mentales que se conocen en un instituto psiquiátrico. Son muy distintos entre sí, cada uno tiene problemas diferentes. Sin embargo, a medida que pasan los días ambos descubren que cada vez necesitan más de esa compañía mutua que tanto disfrutan y que han empezado a sentir afecto por el otro.

Todo indicaría que las dos historias ocurren en el mismo escenario principal, ya que Lisa aparece como personaje secundario en la historia de Jordi, pero en tiempos distintos.
Los dos relatos están narrados en tercera persona, de manera simple y en su mayor parte desde la perspectiva de los chicos, pese a que tampoco deja de lado la del resto, como la de los padres o psiquiatras. Al final de cada uno, se hace un diagnóstico general de ellos, desde su ingreso al instituto, con anotaciones y observaciones durante el transcurso, hasta la última parte con un pronóstico en relación a sus avances. Acá se nota mucho el cambio de estilo, porque tiene el lenguaje de un caso clínico. Ese contraste no me pareció necesario, pero tampoco desencajaba; es algo personal del autor.

En particular, a mí me gustó más Jordi, porque él es más chico y en todo momento me daba mucha ternura; es muy dulce. David es un adolescente y además tiene esa personalidad que denota aún una mayor edad, con su lenguaje técnico y soberbia. De todas formas, es querible, porque es evidente que así demuestra sus miedos. En cambio, Lisa, protagonista en las dos historias, me cayó muy bien, me encantaron sus rimas y me daban una ganas enormes de abrazarla.
La felicidad que asomaba a mi rostro cada vez que alguno de ellos lograba un avance lo resume todo.

En fin, son dos historias muy breves y muy lindas. Recomendable.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing pair of stories about young children suffering from psychological disabilities, and the paths to freedom that they were offered by therapists, teachers, and their families.
This book touched my heart so much that it was one of the major factors in my pursuing a degree teaching children with disabilities.

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting. Very dated.

[Deirdre · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a classic.

I read it when it was first released in 1962, and found it very disturbing and also very intriguing. I was twenty-one that year and both I and a friend of mine where reading books about mental illness, which seemed to be coming out in droves back then. It's hard for me to define exactly how I felt about this book. I learned from it, naturally. I found Lisa captivating and almost surreal. Both Lisa and David made me think of a fairy tale romance that was a bit out of focus and full of pixels. If you could only squint your eyes tight enough, you just might see it all snap into sharp, reasonable contrast.

They tried to make the movie, but it is forgettable. Not so this book.

[Marta E C R · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve owned this since 1970, when it was gifted to me for Christmas. I decided to read it again, and though there were some positive things about it, it is dated, which of course should not be a surprise. I do think the work the therapists did with these children was laudable, and they did improve.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

My sister brought this book with her when she came home from college one summer, and, enticed by the innocuous-looking blonde-haired boy in a field of flowers on the cover, I started reading it with no idea that it was about children with severe mental illnesses and probably wasn't appropriate for a ten-year-old. It was here that I learned the word 'bastard' (though I didn't know what it meant and found out the hard way a few weeks later when I used it to insult my brother during a rousing game of Pollyanna and subsequently got a spanking), and years later I still remember vividly David's disturbing dream involving a guillotine and a clock. I'd be interested to read it again as an adult.

[Cynthia RT · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's like the movie to the Cat Stevens song "Sad Lisa", if it was a soundtrack, or an early music video. Ever since I read the book, I see scenes from the book when I hear the song. I remember realizing the connection as I was reading it, it was kind of a, "Wait a minute... hey!" moment, for a kid.

I read this when I was about 12, the same weekend I read How to Eat Fried Worms, and Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Crazy bunch of reading, like bad food combining!

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made quite an impression on me. Up to this time, in my naivete, I didn't realize that children could have a mental illness. A reader has to come away with increased awareness and compassion. (But much of this is probably outdated.)

[Russ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this one in High School. Three kids with varying mental illnesses. Can't say that I "enjoyed" it, but it opened my eyes to a world of trials beyond my Norman Rockwell-esque upbringing.

[Maggie Mayhem · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in the 8th grade and it's always lingered in my consciousness since then. A pivotal book of observation and not conclusion. A short but still canonical read about psychology.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was short and intriguing. It kept my attention.

[Maura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll be damned if I can remember what this book was actually about, what happened or how I felt about it. It mustn't have been that great if I can't remember. So I'll give it a 3.

[Loralie · Rating 5 out of 5]

interesting. never read a novel about this, usually read the case studies

[Jamieharse]

ok