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    The Golden Hat: Talking Back to Autism
    The Golden Hat: Talking Back to Autism
    The Golden Hat: Talking Back to Autism
    Ebook209 pages1 hour

    The Golden Hat: Talking Back to Autism

    By Kate Winslet, Keli Thorsteinsson and Margret Ericsdottir

    2.5/5

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    About this ebook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster
    Release dateMar 27, 2012
    ISBN9781451645453
    The Golden Hat: Talking Back to Autism

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    Reviews for The Golden Hat

    2.5/5

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    • 3/5
      Collection of selfies of famous people wearing a hat. More importantly, the story of a boy living with autism who finds a way to communicate with the world.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      I liked the idea that she was using the money from this book to help kids with Autism. And I loved reading how they put the whole thing together. The pictures were good too, but the quotes to me made no sense. I would have thought they would have said something to give kids with Autism hope and encouragement. I didn't understand half of the quotes in this book.

    Book preview

    The Golden Hat - Kate Winslet

    THE GOLDEN HAT

    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 LETTERBOARD.

    IT WAS HARD.

    END.

    Poem by Keli Thorsteinsson.

    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 one’s children, to hear them learn, grow, and express themselves verbally.

    KATE WINSLET

    From: Kate Winslet

    Subject: Re: Keli poems

    Date: September 11, 2009 4:14:54 PM CDT

    To: Margret D. Ericsdottir

    Hi Margret,

    I hope you’ve had a good week down in Austin!!!!

    I Wanted to let you know that I have come up with an idea to raise money for Autism.

    I will tell you all the details at another time, but I’m trying to secure some sponsorship to get this started.

    What is the name of the charity that you would like money donated to?

    Have you ste up something in Keli’s name? Would you like to? Let me know.

    I’m so excited about this idea. It just came into my head when I was brushing my teeth last night. It involves a hat, and a lot of very famous people!

    All inspired by Keli.

    Xxxxxxxxx

    Love kate. Xxx

    KATE’S STORY

    So that’s how this started, I was cleaning my teeth one evening, in the quiet of my apartment, the kids were in bed, and I was thinking about Margret and Keli.

    I had met them a few months earlier when I had provided the English-language narration for their film A Mother’s Courage (aka The Sunshine Boy). Margret is the mother of Keli, who is a teenager with nonverbal autism. She had made the film herself, in the hope that it would illuminate Keli’s situation and the lack of help and resources available to them as a family with a nonverbal son. The film had taken her on an incredible journey, which resulted in Keli finally finding a way to communicate with his loved ones for the first time in ten years. It moved me beyond all expectation, and so there I found myself thinking about them again that evening.

    I first watched the film with my daughter Mia, who was eight at the time. At the end, she turned to me and said, Mum, can you imagine what it would be like if I couldn’t tell you that I love you?

    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. We can converse, share, sing, and laugh.

    Through working on the film, I entered a new world of families with children who have autism, where the challenges they face daily are profound and overwhelming. The look on Keli’s face when he typed his first words to me touched me as a mother, and as a human being. I witnessed Margret discover her son after years of silence. As a mother of two very verbal, expressive, affectionate children, it wasn’t enough to provide this narration alone and to simply walk away.

    Margret and I kept in close contact. She would send me Keli’s writing and poems, which moved me to tears on so many occasions.

    One poem was The Golden Hat.

    The Golden Hat

    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 letterboard.

    It was hard.

    End.

    So I came up with this idea… to send my favourite beaten-up trilby to as many well-known people as I could track down and ask them to photograph themselves wearing it! I would then make a book of the self-portraits, alongside Keli’s writings and Margret’s story.

    Amazingly, nearly every single person I asked said yes! Leo DiCaprio, Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp, Richard Branson, Meryl Streep, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Tom Hanks, Jodie Foster, Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman… the list just went on and on. It was heart-warming to discover just how willing people were to help, and it was an amazing feeling to be able to instigate that warmth and generosity in people.

    The instructions were simple:

    Put the hat on. Take a self-portrait.

    Think about the fact that many individuals with nonverbal autism have never been able to communicate. Now express something that’s important to you; this quote will be included in the book.

    The very intimate self-portraits and quotes are featured alongside the photographs and quotes of ten individuals with autism. These extremely moving pages illustrate and celebrate some of their first communications—that gigantic leap forward into a world where their potential can finally be realised and their desires expressed. No one is going to tell you that the most you can hope to achieve is being able to tie your laces, when, like Carly Fleischmann, your first words are

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