Soon other autistic characters began to infiltrate the popular imagination. Within months of Rain Man’s release, Ann Martin published Kristy and the Secret of Susan, the thirty-second installment of The Baby-Sitters Club, one of the biggest-selling series of young adult books in history. Susan’s “secret” was autism, and while she wasn’t much of a character—doing little to advance the plot but flap her hands and make life difficult for her mother—the book was notable for portraying autism in terms that even a twelve-year-old could understand.
