The Gold of the Sunbeams

Book excerpt: Diagnosed as severely autistic at the age of three, Tito, nearly nonverbal, was brought up by his loving moth-er Soma, who taught him to read English and challenged him to write his own stories. The initial result was The Mind Tree, published in 2003, which Tito wrote between the ages of eight and eleven. The Gold of the Sunbeams is an equally impressive, beautiful collection of stories, each prefaced by a charming note from Tito explaining how the story came into being. Above all, this is the work of a true poet.