34 pages • 1 hour read
Sy MontgomeryTemple Grandin
Nonfiction | Biography | Middle Grade | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaChapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary: “Different but Happy”
Grandin’s mother found a small, private school to send her daughter to. Before Grandin started at the school, the school officials prepared the other students. They explained that there was something different about Grandin’s brain that caused her to have different needs. They compared this to children who had challenges, such as trouble walking, because of polio, a disease that was well-known and feared at the time. At the school, Grandin made friends, who stood up for her if she was teased. Her small, close-knit group of friends was together for many years.
Making things such as kites gave Grandin joy. She enjoyed being creative and making things with her hands. She even booby-trapped her room. Other children enjoyed spending time with Grandin because she was creative and had fun ideas. Art also became something Grandin liked. She drew animals like dogs, ducks, and cats, and learned to sew. She and her friend Eleanor even got special permission to take carpentry classes at school, which were ordinarily available only to boys. These experiences gave Grandin the idea of becoming an inventor.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Trial by Teasing”
When she began high school, Grandin faced new challenges. The school was not only new to her, but it was also large and filled with many more people than she was used to. In the busy hallways between her multiple classes each, Grandin felt overwhelmed by all the noise and movement. Some of her schoolmates even teased her, calling her names such as “weirdo” and “dummy.” They picked on her for her habits, like repeating words over and over again, and for the way she could speak very bluntly.
Grandin reacted to these taunts, sometimes violently, which she is not proud of. She also often felt bored in her classes, unable to see the importance of what she was being taught. To deal with her boredom, she played pranks, such as hiding all the girl’s clothes during gym so that they had to wear their gym uniforms back to class. In general, Grandin felt out of place, did not develop an interest in boys like most other girls her age did, and thought to herself, “I don’t want to grow up” (43). One day, when a classmate taunted her, calling her “retard,” Grandin hit her with a book and was expelled from school.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Hampshire School for Wayward Wizards”
After the incident at Grandin’s high school, her father again wanted to send her to an institution. Grandin’s mother instead found a boarding school in rural New Hampshire, the Hampshire Country School, for her daughter to attend. The school was founded in 1948 and based on the idea that people like Grandin are not bad of at fault, but instead need different methods of instruction. The current director of admissions at the school compares it to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from the Harry Potter series. Some of Grandin’s classmates have, like her, gone on to be very successful in a variety of fields.
At Hampshire Country School, Grandin thrived, and especially enjoyed opportunities to be outdoors, to be physically active, and to make things. She and a friend built a ski two, climbed Mt. Washington, and rode horses. She was a tomboy, and preferred to spend time with animals, much like her friend Jackie. Grandin also continued to find classes uninteresting, and to play pranks. For instance, she built a fake UFO to scare her roommates. Even as she thrived at her school, as Grandin entered puberty, she began to feel more anxious and to have panic attacks.
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
As Temple Grandin continues, the importance of Grandin’s mother becomes even more clear. Faced with opposition all around her—even from Grandin’s own father—Grandin’s mother was persistent in seeking solutions for Grandin. She believed in her daughter and trusted that Grandin would be able to thrive in school even when the experts and family around her thought that the plan would never work. Again, when Grandin struggles in high school, her mother seeks out an alternative school in New Hampshire that is more suited to her needs and interests, including time outside and the chance to work with animals. The persistence of Grandin’s mother provided a model for Grandin herself; she relied on persistence to get through a variety of challenges she faced.
Chapters 4–6 also emphasize the importance of Grandin’s school environment to her success. As Chapter 4 explains, the private elementary school Grandin attended largely accepted her and her differences. Montgomery explains that this acceptance was highly unusual at the time. Within Grandin’s story, this welcoming models ways that autism can be accepted and appreciated.
When Grandin changes schools at the beginning of high school, she struggles in the new environment. This contrast shows both how people with autism can be discriminated against, and what a difference an accepting environment, like Grandin’s previous school, can make. Yet even in this difficult environment, Grandin relies on the persistence modeled by her mother to overcome the challenge. However, Grandin’s persistence is not always uniform or successful. Montgomery shows this through the story of Grandin attacking a bully and being expelled from school as a result. Likewise, Montgomery explains, when Grandin felt bored in school, she turned to playing pranks, like hiding girls’ clothing during gym class, or later, in her New Hampshire school, creating a fake UFO. The prank-playing and violent responses to bullying are things Grandin may even be “ashamed” of now, as she looks back on her life. At the same time, they are signs that Grandin was naturally creative as a youth and sought outlets for her creativity.
In a positive way, Grandin’s creativity and persistence show through things like her insistence on taking carpentry class in her New Hampshire high school, even though it was expected that only boys would take the class. Grandin fought gender discrimination as well as misunderstandings about autism. Yet Chapter 6 closes by expressing how Grandin dealt with strong feelings of anxiety as she went through adolescence. While Grandin had creative potential, her high school years were certainly a time of growth and challenges on the way to realizing that potential.
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