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http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080706/LIFE/807060322/-1/NEWS

Learn about America from Connor Gifford

" America According to Connor Gifford " can be found at local

bookstores or you can order it directly from the publisher at www.connorgifford.com or by calling

800-booklog. Connor Gifford and will make the following

appearances:

Nantucket Historical Society Whaling

Museum, 6 to 8 p.m. tomorrow

National Down Syndrome Congress Convention,

Seaport World Trade Center, Boston, July 11 - 13.

______________________________________

" America According to Connor

Gifford "

We need to see America through Connor Gifford's eyes

Showing his enthusiasm for the United States, Connor poses in front of the

nation’s capitol. The 26-year-old author fell in love with history in the

eighth grade.Handout

By LAURIE HIGGINS

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

July 06, 2008

What happens when a 26-year-old man with Down syndrome meets a soon-to-be

grandmother close to four decades older than him? In the case of Nantucket

residents Connor Gifford and , a beautiful friendship was born

that ultimately changed both their life paths and led to the publication of a

book about our nation's history, " America According to Connor

Gifford. "

In the prologue to the book, Gifford thanks God for giving him the gift of

Down syndrome, and he explains that after he was born doctors diagnosed him

with mosaic Down syndrome.

From " America According to Connor

Gifford "

THE FIRST AMERICANS 1492

Before the white men arrived,

Indian tribes were everywhere.

They lived in teepees.

They hunted buffalo for clothing, for food, to make their homes.

They used all of the animal

and wasted nothing.

Each tribe - from their

hunting to their ceremonies - was unique.

Their spirit and their culture

guided them along the way.

They believed that the land was sacred, and that no one owns it.

That made them different from us.

THE BILL OF RIGHTS 1791

After the Constitution was

written, they realized it did

not go far enough.

So they created the Bill

of Rights.

These are actually the first

Ten Amendments to the Constitution.

The First Amendment insures

freedoms such as speech, religion, press and the right

to bear arms.

But, what the Bill of Rights

did not say was, " If you get a gun, do no turn around and kill

somebody. "

They left that out.

" I was so blessed, and that's why I thank God for my gift, " Gifford

says. " I am sensitive to things like you don't mistreat somebody who is,

let's say, black, or Indian, or Mexican. We all have something in ourselves

that we can say to the world, 'Look out world, here I come.' "

That sentiment is certainly coming true for Gifford. " The World

According to Connor Gifford " was released on Nantucket in June and is

making its New England debut on this Fourth of July weekend. It already is

selling well and getting attention from the national news media. Tim Russert

wrote an endorsement of the book and planned to have Gifford on " Meet the

Press " before his untimely death. s (a part-time Nantucket

resident) of MSNBC's " Hardball With s " met Gifford and

loved the book.

Gifford is a native of sburg, Ohio, where he graduated from high school

is 2002. His parents pushed to have him take mainstream classes, and he fell in

love with history in the eighth grade. He now lives year-round on Nantucket.

' background is in documentary filmmaking, and she's the founder of

the Group, which creates Fortune 500 branding campaigns. She was working

on a first novel when she met Gifford.

In a telephone interview, and Gifford, each on a different extension,

explained how the book came to be.

The two met at ' daughter's house on Nantucket in January of 2007.

" Connor and I just really liked each other right off the bat, "

says. " We got talking about history, and I realized there was this very

profound sense of the essence of who we are as a nation in this young man's

mind. "

went home to Rochester, N.Y., but she could not stop thinking about

the conversation. By summer, she knew she wanted Gifford to write a book, and

she created the concept of " America According to Connor Gifford. " She

didn't have any idea what the book would look like, or even be about, but she

called his parents, and Chuck Gifford, and asked if she could interview

their son about his thoughts on history.

" I felt deeply that the knowledge that was in Connor's mind, that he

couldn't necessarily express in the traditional way that somebody sits down and

writes a book, could be released if I could interview him, " says.

The interviews continued through the fall, and as transcribed

hundreds of hours of interviews she began to see patterns in Connor's thinking.

What emerged was a profound sense of civil rights. She also realized that

Connor could express history best through people and events that he thought we

all should know, such as Anne Hutchinson, lin, the Declaration of

Independence, the Bill of Rights, our westward expansion and Jim Crow laws. It

was a natural development of Gifford's personal feelings about history.

" My love for history started in eighth grade, " Gifford says,

" and as I went through history, I realized that what these people were

doing was touching my heart. "

The book includes 53 essays, which cover close to 400 years of history.

would begin each interview by asking Gifford, " What are we talking

about today? " He would pick a topic like Plessy v. Ferguson or the Women's

Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y. They would talk about the subject, and

then Gifford would do more research and they would talk again. was

constantly amazed at his ability to clearly and concisely get to the essential

point of each topic.

By the end of the year, decided to move to Nantucket so they could

work more closely. They put all of his research in chronological order and

decided which people and events were the most important. As started to

put the book together, she realized that Connor's true voice wasn't coming

through when the book was written in traditional paragraph form.

" I was lying in bed one night and all of a sudden I saw three lines,

space, three lines, space and what I would call the grand design of the

topography, " says. " That was to me a major moment, because

when I looked at it and when the people like his parents read it and looked at

it, it was Connor. It was authentic. There had to be an authenticity to this.

While Connor and I are collaborators and we are partners in this, it very much

had to be his voice. "

The book is not only in Gifford's voice, it also is illustrated with his

artwork.

saw an illustration Gifford had done of the 1963 March on Washington

where Luther King Jr. gave his famous " I Have a Dream " speech

and fell in love with Gifford's naive style of art. The illustration was filled

with circles, representing the 250,000 people who participated in the march.

She asked Gifford's mother, who is an artist, to help him develop a series

of drawings to go with the text. Circles play a prominent theme throughout the illustrations.

In the beginning of book, they are mostly all white, but as the nation becomes

more diverse the circles increasingly become black or gray.

" This isn't just a cute book. It's subversive in that it's a profoundly

deep book that sneaks up on you, " says. " Connor has the

capacity to make sense of who we are, and he can bring home this point that we

have got to stop repeating the same mistakes and the only way we can do that is

by knowing our history. "

This is a subject that Gifford feels very strongly about, and he writes that

Americans hide behind our freedom and don't take the responsibility that comes

with it.

" Basically our world is falling apart with things like our economy,

global warming, our nation's health, " Gifford says. " It has been a

very long ride. "

But when asked how he feels about his sudden fame, Gifford says, " It

feels like I am actually on top of the world. "