"The Golden Hat: Talking Back to Autism" by Kate Winslet with Keli Thorsteinsson and Margret Ericsdottir (Simon&Schuster, 286 pages, $25.95)

"Carly’s Voice: Breaking Through Autism" by Arthur Fleischmann with Carly Fleischmann (Touchstone, 391 pages, $24)

"By the Iowa Sea" by Joe Blair (Scribner, 280 pages, $24)

April is National Autism Awareness Month. Autism is the general term for a number of developmental brain disorders that are being diagnosed with more frequency. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control in late March issued a report stating that autism is currently diagnosed in 1 out of every 88 children.

Three new books offer readers direct and indirect looks at autism:

The actress Kate Winslet met Margret Ericsdottir while taping the narration for the Icelandic documentary film “A Mother’s Courage: Talking Back to Autism” (aka “The Sunshine Boy”). Ericsdottir’s son, Keli Thorsteinsson, has a severe form of nonverbal autism. She was told that her son should be institutionalized because he could not communicate.

Margret refused to believe that and worked with her son to find a way for him to communicate by pointing to letters on a board. He now expresses himself through words and poems. Margret produced the film “A Mother’s Courage” to document the struggle to help Keli.

April is also National Poetry Month. Keli wrote a poem (“The Golden Hat”) that inspired this book. Keli wrote: “This boy had a golden hat. The hat was magical. It could talk. The boy did not have any voice. He had autism. His hat was always with him. His hat was lost one day. Now he had no way of telling them his stories. His mom and dad became sad. They taught him spelling on a letter board. It was hard. End.”

This book contains 100 photos of people wearing “the golden hat.” George Clooney, James Franco, Meryl Streep and Oprah Winfrey were photographed for the cause. All proceeds from the book benefit The Golden Hat Foundation.

When she was 2 years old Carly Fleischmann’s family knew that she is autistic and has apraxia, which makes it difficult for her to speak. Her parents, her brother and her twin sister dealt with Carly’s inability to talk and her difficulties in controlling her impulses. She appeared unreachable.

Then when Carly was 10 an amazing thing occurred: She began communicating by typing on a computer. In “Carly’s Voice: Breaking Through Autism” we discover this inspiring story in her father’s words and also in Carly’s. Carly lives in Toronto. She attends a mainstream high school and communicates with her friends like a typical high schooler, via Facebook and Twitter.

Joe Blair lives with his family in Iowa. His memoir, “By the Iowa Sea,” is the story of how Blair almost wrecked his marriage. The Blairs were a fairly typical middle class family: paying the bills, raising the kids, just trying to get by. They had two sons already when the twins, Lucy and Michael, were born in 1998.

One twin, Michael, was born with autism. His father describes him: “Michael is very private. He seems to be all alone in the world. He lives in a place that makes him suddenly scream at the top of his lungs. And then, just as suddenly, laugh hysterically. Michael flies into rages for reasons hidden from us.”

While autism is not the main focus here, the presence of Michael and his impact on the family is omnipresent.

Autism is becoming more prevalent. We need to try to understand what it is and how we can best help those who are affected by it.

Vick Mickunas of Yellow Springs interviews authors every Friday at 1:30 p.m. and on Sundays at 11 a.m. on WYSO-FM (91.3). For more information, go online to www.wyso.org/programs/book-nook. Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.com.