Autistic Girl’s Special Power: A Review of Get a Grip, Vivy Cohen!

Eleven-year-old Vivy Cohen wants to play baseball like her older brother, Nate. Not softball, baseball. Throwing a knuckleball – her signature pitch – is impossible in softball. Vivy is autistic and her overprotective mother thinks a lot of things are impossible, but Vivy wants to prove her mother wrong. To help her in her campaign, she writes letters to acclaimed major-league knuckleball pitcher VJ Capello – and he writes her back! After corresponding with a real-life sports hero, anything is possible!

Vivy doesn’t count on a string of obstacles, from the coach’s son refusing to accept her on the boys’ baseball team to an injury that knocks her off the mound for weeks. In the meantime, her pen pal is experiencing a slump, and Vivy has a knack for saying the wrong things to him. But being on a real team and having things in common with her catcher, Alex, offers her a first chance of having a friend. As Vivy experiences the give and take of friendship and learns that disagreements don’t mean the end, she becomes more capable and confident both on and off the field.

Like her protagonist, debut novelist Sarah Kapit is autistic, and Get a Grip, Vivy Cohen! is an authentic and heartfelt exploration of an autistic preteen learning to make her own way in the world. Vivy’s mom is a worthy antagonist, and readers will root for VIvy as she tries different ways of escaping Mom’s very tight control. In contrast to too many books written by outsiders, this novel is not “all about” being autistic. Rather, it focuses on Vivy’s interest in baseball and her correspondence with VJ Capello. The epistolary format reveals a unique voice full of humor and longing, and a persistence that stands her in good stead as she pursues her goals.

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