The Golden Hat
Talking Back to Autism
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4.6 • 22 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Thank you for taking this journey with us. We hope this book brings a new awareness of the opportunity we have to help those with autism learn to communicate and realize their ambitions. People with autism have the potential to achieve great things, but only when given the appropriate support and education. This is why the Golden Hat Foundation was formed. All author proceeds from this book go directly to the Golden Hat Foundation. With your help, we can change the world for people with autism. For more information about the Golden Hat Foundation and ways you can help, please visit our website: www.goldenhatfoundation.org
“I simply couldn’t conceive of how devastating it would be not to be able to hear my children’s voices. Not to be able to communicate with them, to hear them learn, grow, and express themselves verbally. How fortunate, how blessed I am. This overwhelmed me. I can talk to my children, I can respond to their needs and comfort them when they tell me they are unwell. I can tell them stories and hear them tell theirs.”
Kate Winslet
Imagine what it would be like not to be able to communicate with those we love. For many individuals living with nonverbal autism and their families, this is their everyday reality. The Golden Hat is an intimate response to this reality created by Kate Winslet, Margret Ericsdottir, and her son Keli, who has nonverbal autism.
Kate and Margret’s stories, their personal email correspondence, and Keli’s poetry give us a profound insight into the world of those living with autism. Kate has shared this story with some of the world’s most famous people, posing the question: “What is important to you to express?” Their responses are a collection of intimate self-portraits and unique quotes. Among them are:
Christina Aguilera
Zac Efron
Julianne Moore
Maria Sharapova
Kobe Bryant
James Franco
Rosie O’Donnell
Ben Stiller
Michael Caine
Ricky Gervais
Michael Phelps
Meryl Streep
Kim Cattrall
Tom Hanks
John C. Reilly
Justin Timberlake
George Clooney
Elton John
Tim Robbins
Naomi Watts
Leonardo DiCaprio
Jude Law
Kristin Scott Thomas
Oprah Winfrey
Put together by Kate, Margret, and the dedicated team who work daily on the Golden Hat Foundation, this project has been a labor of love.
All the author proceeds from this groundbreaking book will benefit the Golden Hat Foundation, founded by Kate Winslet and Margret Ericsdottir to build innovative living campuses for people with autism and raise public awareness of their intellectual capabilities.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
While making the English-language recording of the Icelandic documentary on autism, A Mother's Courage, in 2009, actress Winslet befriended the film's creator, Margret Ericsdottir, and her young son Keli, who suffered from severe nonverbal autism. At age 10, Keli, who had been unreachable and deemed to have a mental capacity of a two-year-old, suddenly found expression through the use of a letterboard, with the shattering words: "I am real." In fact, Keli had been aware all the while yet unable to break the "locked bars" of autism. Winslet started up the Golden Hat Foundation titled after Keli's poem about a magical golden hat that could talk as a way to generate money for the cause and create learning communities for the children; she enlisted the support of famous faces who agreed to photograph themselves with Winslet's beatup trilby accompanied by a quote sounding in some fashion the urgency for expression. (Winslet's quote: "I'm here, and I love you.") From the first participant, Meryl Streep, through other familiar names often depicted in unfamiliar, stark black-and-white settings, all wearing or posing with the hat (John Krasinski wonders from the bathtub, "Let's take a chance!"; Emily Blunt vogues, "Is anybody listening?"; Elton John grins, "I'm nobody, but I'm alive and I matter"; Woody Allen covers his face, growling, "Get off my property"), these are engaging, moving public gestures for a notable cause. Testimonials by autistic young people including Keli lend the entire effort warmth and sincerity.
Customer Reviews
What a wonderful project, and heart-warming book
Even if you aren't the parent of a child with autism, statistically speaking, you know at least one child who is struggling with this difficult condition. This brilliant project does more than just bring awareness, it educates the uninitiated by presenting the children with the greatest struggle as more than the sum of their spectrum issues. I thoroughly enjoyed reading every bit of it, and was sad to have burned through it in a matter of a couple of hours! I was also deeply moved by the participation of so many entertainment industry Greats. This book challenges us to go outside of our own expectations, and the reward is to see these children as who they really are inside, instead of dead-ending our interactions with them because they can't interact with us the way we are most comfortable.
The Golden Hat
Extraordinary. Finished in one sitting a must read for every parent with a child on the spectrum.
The Golden Hat
The idea is wonderful and the emails between the Kate and Margaret were lovely. Keli's words were remarkable. What is disappointing is that most of the celebrities missed an opportunity to SAY SOMETHING. The author asked them to express something important to them and, as people who have a voice, they missed the point.
I'm still glad I purchased it. The cause is an important one, and I appreciate Kate Winslet's efforts.