Guglielmo, Amy: How to Build a Hug

Amy Guglielmo, Jacqueline Tourville, and Giselle Potter come together to tell the inspiring story of autism advocate Dr. Temple Grandin and her brilliant invention: the hug machine.

As a young girl, Temple Grandin loved folding paper kites, making obstacle courses, and building lean-tos. But she really didn’t like hugs. Temple wanted to be held—but to her, hugs felt like being stuffed inside the scratchiest sock in the world; like a tidal wave of dentist drills, sandpaper, and awful cologne, coming at her all at once. Would she ever get to enjoy the comfort of a hug?

Then one day, Temple had an idea. If she couldn’t receive a hug, she would make one…she would build a hug machine!"The authors take readers from Grandin’s early childhood through her young adulthood, lightly sketching in biographical information in order to focus on her antipathy to being hugged by others and her resultant invention. Potter’s illustrations capture Grandin’s likeness well and frequently show her with tools in hand or near animals, reinforcing the text’s emphasis on these interests."