Family ties with a Disney twist
In 1993, every parent’s nightmare became a reality for Ron Suskind and his wife, Cornelia, when their 3-year-old son vanished. But the Suskinds’ youngest child had disappeared right in front of them. One day Owen was a rambunctious toddler with a ready smile and a budding vocabulary. The next day he was withdrawn, bereft of words, inconsolable. After a stream of doctor visits, Owen was diagnosed with regressive autism, a developmental disorder that typically appears between a child’s first and third years. The condition turned Owen inward and upended the way he engaged with the world, including his parents and brother. Suskind’s new book, “Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism,” is an affecting account of how the family gradually reconnected — through Disney movies. ‘A world was growing inside of him, in that silent place.’ “It was always a question we asked: What is it about his affinity with Disney?” Suskind,...