The Boy with the Butterfly Mind Format: Paperback

For fans of Jodi Picoult and Bonnie Garmus, an illuminating novel about a mother struggling to raise a healthy neurodivergent child with a husband worn down by depression.

When Julie Crawford’s whirlwind four-year-old is kicked out of preschool, suspected of having ADHD—likely genetic—her husband moans from his recliner that “even my genes are failures.” At work, Julie is a high school math teacher who requires her students to solve complex problems. But faced with an unsafe daycare home and no other daycare openings, a husband who hates the idea of labeling their son as a “problem,” and a supervisor who’s angry at the amount of time she’s taking off school, she’s at a loss for how to come up with a solution to this particular dilemma.

Julie’s struggle to help her son ultimately demands a number of mindset shifts: a willingness to become a student and ask for help, a humble acceptance of her errors, a burgeoning strength to reckon with a dominant father and retreating husband—and the self-confidence to trust her instincts when it comes to deciding on the best next steps for her son.

Lorelei Brush is a college mathematics major, a former assistant professor of child development, and the parent of a neurodivergent child. The story in The Boy with the Butterfly Mind mixes elements of all three life experiences to describe the struggles and triumph of a young family dealing with neurodivergence. Her previous novels include Uncovering, about the trials of a nurse practitioner in northwest Pakistan, and Chasing the American Dream, about the quest of a disappointed WWII spy to be a hero in 1950s Cleveland. Lorelei and her husband live in Falls Church, Virginia, with a bossy gray cat named Marabelle.