Chapter Book 8 / Rules

Title	Rules
Author	Cynthia Lord
Illustrator
Publication Year	2006
Awards	N/A
Publisher	Scholastic Press
ISBN	0-439-44382-2
Readability Score (GLE = Grade Level Equivalent)	Lexile	780L
	DRA	40
	GLE	4.5
	Guided Reading	R
Genre /      Sub-Genre	Chapter Book / Realistic Fiction
Theme	Finding out what is right and wrong
Primary Character	Catherine
Secondary Characters	David, Jason,
Classroom Use	This book would be good to teach compassion, challenges, different abilities, siblings, friends, friendship, understanding self and others.
Book Summary	Catherine writes rules for her autistic younger brother, David, to help him behave. She believes that David does not understand things the way most people do so he has to have people explain everything to him. Rules seem necessary to help him learn what others naturally know. Catherine is full of anticipation when she learns a girl her age will be moving in next door. She is determined that they will become best friends, but a little worried that David will get in the way. Meanwhile she begins to make another new friend, Jason, as she waits for David during his occupational therapy sessions. Jason is paraplegic and can’t speak so he uses a book of words that he points to in order to communicate. Catherine writes new words for his notebook. Catherine is becoming friends with her neighbor and she is embarrassed about her brother and does not like to talk about him. Catherine is also keeping Jason a secret from her friend because he is in a wheelchair. Jason finds out that Catherine is embarrassed because of him and he gets mad. She learns the difference between rules and excuses and realizes that it does not matter what others think