The 12 Weeks of Summer. (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781475055382)

It was another hot day in early August, 2011. My youngest son and I were once again camped at our favorite beach on Rhode Island's south shore. After a morning of battling behemoth, blue, breakers, we retreated up the beach and, across the stony lot, to the tranquil waters of the pond beyond our campsite. Even as the brackish water liberated us from the oceans salt and sand we still could hear her pounding surf taunting us. There among the reeds, a large dragon fly hovered lower to take a brief drink. Joey's head popped up and broke the surface, his half fogged dive mask still firmly in place. This was my chance! Even though he had made remarkable progress up the "Autism Spectrum" this summer, I still felt it was my duty to throw him a curveball now and then... just to keep him on his toes. And what better way to test his awareness than to start singing Christmas songs on such a perfect summers' day! I started in " On the first day of Chris"...., he took in a deep breath and was plunging back down again. Basically just for the fun of it. I couldn't help but smile. After another attempt or two, I did grab his attention. We stood there up to our necks laughing and singing the twelve days of Christmas. This was fun! This was good! And I couldn't picture a better classroom to take this lesson to the next level. At first it was a little challenging but it didn't take us too long. What could be more obvious than to turn" a partridge in a pear tree" into, "a trip down to the big sea"! Once we got past eight smiling mermaids it was all downstream! After a month or so of singing it to friends and family I had a vision of this book. I hope you have as much fun reading is as we did writing it. Thank you Joe Andrade Sr.