A wonderful biography of Temple Grandin for kids. Temple Grandin was born to a well off family in the 1950s with autism. Autism was a new diagnosis then but people with the problems have probably been around for a long time. In the 50s, autism was thought of as being a form of schizophrenia. Temple's mother accepted her, her father wanted her to go to a mental asylum or one for mentally retarded people. Temple was lucky because her family could afford private schooling, speech therapy and a psychologist. The psychologists Temple had were always of dubious help but she had them. Temple was allowed to go to elementary school and was accepted by all. In secondary school, she was sent to a much larger private school but the acceptance wasn't there. She received bad grades and didn't do well, failing almost all her classes. She did better in art and gym. Later she was sent to an exclusive boarding school which was better. When Temple's mother remarried, Temple was sent to live on a ranch in Arizona with her stepfather's sister. There she experienced the life of cattle and farm animals. As a teen, she recreated the chute which was used to send cattle on their way to slaughter. She felt they shouldn't be afraid. What sent her on to a Ph.D was a hugging machine she invented for herself due to panic attacks. She saw how a machine could calm calves when vaccinating them. She made one for herself and when psychologists and other questioned her sanity, a science teacher suggested an experiment to find out if people did feel comforted by being in the machine. The book goes on how Temple was sometimes mistreated by people and other times people stood up for her. She was able to better animals lives and has become famous for it. Most of her work is with cattle but she hopes to help pigs, chickens and goats too. Kosher plants ended up being a challenge because of the rules they use to kill meat actually ends up being abusive on the factory floor today. She is trying to help them keep their laws and minimize distress of cattle. One thing that bothered me that I hadn't know before was that the laws against mistreatment of animals is written only for mammals. Chickens and birds are covered and they are treated horribly. She wants and I too want laws to cover birds. We shouldn't hurt them.