Author Writes Children’s Book about Autism, “Flapping for Joy”

Kaden Arkeder has written a heartwarming children’s book about a boy with autism called Flapping for Joy. This book seeks to build empathy and understanding about autism for a young audience.

“With autism diagnoses becoming more and more common, I came up with the idea of writing a children’s book series where each book focuses on one autism characteristic and teaches readers about the characteristic in a family-friendly way,” explains Arkeder.

Flapping for Joy is about a young boy named Lucas playing with his friends. While playing, Lucas gets excited and begins to flap his arms, puzzling his friends. Lucas goes on to explain he has autism and why he flaps his arms. Lucas’ friends suggest a new game to play which incorporates flapping. Flapping for Joy is an educational story aimed towards readers who are young or old who may not know about autism and one of its many characteristics. 

Arkeder is currently working as a school behavior interventionist. He has been working in the autism field since 2018, which has led him to work with various age groups of people impacted by autism across the spectrum. 

He always enjoyed writing growing up, and would create comic stories during elementary school, which turned into creating short stories in middle school. The creativity and passion to write waned after that but was reignited a few years ago when he came to a realization; there are not many books focused on autism and very few of those are children’s books.

In addition to Arkeder’s writing, Flapping for Joy is accompanied by colorful illustrations provided by Jessica Brooks. Arkeder was in constant contact with Brooks throughout the creation process of Flapping for Joy. They would talk about ideas for character design, setting design, and even small details of what could be used in the background. According to Arkeder, “Jessica and I spent hours on the phone coming up with all these ideas we had because we both wanted the book to be the best we thought it could be.” 

When Kaden first saw the illustrations for Flapping for Joy he was at a loss for words. “Jessica completely nailed the atheistic of the art style I was looking for while perfectly capturing what I wanted the characters to look like. It was such a huge step in seeing the book come to life.” Says Kaden.

You can find Kaden Arkeder on Instagram @Flapping_for_Joy, Facebook @Flapping for Joy, Tik Tok @FlappingforJoy, and Twitter @FlappingforJoy. If you would like to buy a copy of Flapping for Joy, it’s available on Amazon here.

When asked what advice he would give to kids with autism, Arkeder said, “Be yourself and to dream BIG. Autism is what you make of it and if you dream big, autism could be your biggest ally in making those dreams come true.”