Illustrator with autism dreams of seeing his book on the shelves

CINCINNATI – Alexa Moulder had no desire to live in Ohio – then her husband’s work took the family from their beloved New Jersey to the Buckeye State.

Now she looks back and says, “I say it was a godsend. I mean, it really was. There was a reason we ended up here. And it was for this reason.”

The “this” Moulder is talking about is Best Point Education and Behavioral Health’s Heidt Center of Excellence. The program on Red Bank Road is a school that focuses on educating people with autism.

Six years ago, Moulder found the school was a perfect fit for her son, Max.

“Most schools,” Moulder said, “especially public schools with a special education program, are all with different disabilities in one classroom and they don’t really try to say, ‘What do you want to do? What makes you happy? What is your passion?’ That’s what they do here. Let’s find something for you.”

For Max it was art.

“It’s always been his thing,” Moulder said. “He has a desk in the basement where he sits for hours and draws and draws.”

Max, now 22 and a graduate of the program, sits holding a colorful children’s book he wrote and illustrated called “Billy the Bilby.” The illustrations show animals working together and the landscape he drew is that of Australia.

“I love Australian content,” says Max Moulder. “Australian content is something you rarely see.”

He explains in great detail that the bilby is a marsupial and, when asked, reads aloud from his book.

“Deep in the outback of Australia,” reads Max. “Where the sun is warm, the ground is dry, and it hardly rains, there lived a bandicoot named Billy.”

He admits that his mother and father helped him with the story about friendship and learning, but the drawings are all Max’s.

“At first,” his mother said, “I thought he was tracing because he brought it to me and said, ‘Look at this.’ I said, ‘Where did you get that traced?’ He said, ‘I didn’t trace it, I drew it.'”

Max’s family self-published his book through Amazon. Max has already written and fully illustrated his next book. The problem is finding a publisher who will take on Max’s big ideas. Alexa Moulder said her son loves browsing the shelves at Joseph-Beth Booksellers and his dream would be to see his book on display and people buying it.

Alexa and her husband tell Max to work hard at his craft every day – and that’s exactly what he does. Hour after hour, he draws, colors and shades the characters he creates in their surreal surroundings.

“He has sketchbooks that are probably just as thick with pencil sketches in them,” she says. “Incredible. And he’s 100% self-taught. No one ever taught him how to do it.”

She said the teachers at the Heidt Center of Excellence have nurtured Max. But now that he is too old for the program, his mother is worried about what will happen next to her son.

“Once they get too old, that’s the biggest fear in the world, you know? They’re getting older and we don’t know what to do. If you don’t own a family business, I mean, are they going to work at Dunkin’ Donuts? Are they going to work at McDonald’s? Is that going to fulfill them?” Alexa Moulder says.

Although Max works part-time at a local McDonald’s, she knows he needs to create something to find fulfillment.

Alexa sends her son’s work to every publisher she thinks will look at it. She knows her son has the talent. She knows he can do the work. Now she just hopes for Max – and for all families like hers – that there is a way to make Max’s dream come true.

“I wish that for him so much,” says Alexa Moulder. “I want people and parents of autistic children to believe in it and see that it is possible. It is possible. You can do it.”