Disability
This collection features titles that offer insight into disability, offering guidance for generating meaningful discussion about topics including blindness, deafness, autism spectrum disorder, physical disabilities, dyslexia, and Down syndrome.
Lisa Graff’s Absolutely Almost (2014) is a middle-grade novel about self-acceptance and recognizing one’s own worth. The story follows 10-year-old Albie’s journey along this path. Albie has never been the best at anything, especially anything to do with school. He continually falls short of others’ expectations, especially his parents’. However, his new nanny, Calista, sees him differently—and gradually, she helps Albie discover his strengths and take pride in himself.Graff is an American writer who pens... Read Absolutely Almost Summary
Al Capone Does My Homework, Gennifer Choldenko’s 2013 novel about a boy living on Alcatraz Island with his family, is the third book in Choldenko’s young adult series, Tales from Alcatraz, which follows the adventures of Moose Murphy and his teenage sister, Natalie. The series combines 1930s history with elements of humor, mystery, and suspense while exploring issues of morality, sociology, and developmental health. Natalie, for instance, has a developmental disability, which complicates the family’s... Read Al Capone Does My Homework Summary
Gennifer Choldenko’s Al Capone Does My Shirts (2006) is a work of historical fiction aimed at middle grade readers. The novel is about a family who moves to Alcatraz Island, a small, unprotected island in the middle of San Francisco Bay, in 1935, in the middle of the Great Depression, because the protagonist’s father gets a job at Alcatraz prison. This real life prison formerly housed America’s most infamous, dangerous and ruthless convicts, including historical... Read Al Capone Does My Shirts Summary
Al Capone Shines My Shoes (2009) is the second book in Gennifer Choldenko’s Tales from Alcatraz series. The novel is set on the prison island of Alcatraz during the height of the Great Depression. The protagonist and narrator is 12-year-old Matthew “Moose” Flanagan, whose father works as a guard and electrician at the notorious prison. When Moose receives a note from Al Capone, a famous gangster and prisoner of Alcatraz, he finds himself caught up... Read Al Capone Shines My Shoes Summary
All the Light We Cannot See is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Anthony Doerr published in 2014. This historical fiction novel alternates between the lives of its two central characters: Marie-Laure Leblanc, a girl who grows up in Paris and loses her eyesight to cataracts at age six, and Werner Pfennig, a boy from a German mining town who joins the Nazi military to escape working in the mines.In August 1944, Marie-Laure and Werner are... Read All the Light We Cannot See Summary
A Mango-Shaped Space is a 2003 middle-grade novel by American author Wendy Mass. It tells the story of Mia Winchell, a 13-year-old girl living in Illinois in the early 2000s. Mia has a secret. She associates all letters and numbers with distinct colors, and when she hears sounds, she sees bursts of color across her field of vision. It turns out that Mia has synesthesia, an uncommon but harmless neurological condition where an individual’s senses... Read A Mango-Shaped Space Summary
At around 1,000 words, “A Man Who Had No Eyes” by American author MacKinlay Kantor (born Benjamin MacKinlay Kantor) can be considered an example of flash fiction. The short story was first published in The Monitor in 1931. It is one of Kantor’s early works of fiction and is markedly different from his later works of historical fiction, which earned him literary fame. Kantor was best known for his prolific novels, many of which are... Read A Man Who Had No Eyes Summary
Nora Raleigh Baskin won the Schneider Family Book Award for the young adult novel Anything But Typical, published in 2009. Anything But Typical tells the first-person fictional story of a 12-year-old boy diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Jason Blake struggles with adolescence in the same ways most 12-year-old boys do, but his disorder makes it more difficult for him to verbally express his experience. Instead, he turns to writing to share his inner world... Read Anything But Typical Summary
Published in 1994, Autobiography of a Face is award-winning poet Lucy Grealy’s prose debut, a widely-celebrated memoir concerning the author’s struggles with cancer and disfigurement.At the age of 9, Lucy collides with a classmate during a game of dodgeball. The subsequent toothache leads her to seek medical assistance and doctors discover that she has Ewing’s sarcoma, a form of cancer with a 5% survival rate. She undergoes an operation to remove half of her jaw... Read Autobiography Of A Face Summary
“Average Waves in Unprotected Waters,” originally published in the February 28, 1977 edition of The New Yorker, is one of American author Anne Tyler’s most anthologized stories. Through the third-person-limited point of view of the protagonist, Bet Blevins, Tyler presents the story of a single mother on the day she intends to institutionalize her developmentally disabled son, Arnold. As Bet struggles to navigate her complex emotions regarding Arnold, the story explores themes of the conflicting... Read Average Waves in Unprotected Waters Summary
Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant is Daniel Tammet’s memoir and his first published book. In it, he recalls his childhood, adolescence, and adulthood leading up to the point in his life when he became independent with a partner and a career. Born on a Blue Day was a New York Times best seller following its publication in 2006.Tammet is, as identified in the subtitle, an autistic savant... Read Born on a Blue Day Summary
Boy of the Painted Cave is a 1996 middle-grade historical fiction novel by Justin Denzel set 18,000 years ago in prehistoric France. The novel is told in the limited third-person point of view and follows Tao, a 14-year-old boy with a disability, who longs to be a cave painter for his clan. Tao has difficulty walking with his right foot, and he compensates for this by using a spear as a crutch. The crutch allows... Read Boy of the Painted Cave Summary
Cost of Living, a play by Martyna Majok, premiered in 2016 at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts. It transferred to an off-Broadway theatre in 2017, produced by Manhattan Theatre Club, and is slated to debut on Broadway in fall, 2022. The play was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and also won a 2018 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play. The title of the play refers not only to the monetary costs of... Read Cost of Living Summary
Counting by 7s is Holly Goldberg Sloan's first middle-grade novel, published in 2013. A New York Times bestseller, this contemporary story draws upon themes relevant to Sloan's own life. The novel is set in present-day Bakersfield, California, which Sloan says is “emblematic of the characters,” in the sense that it is “often overlooked.” Sloan's subsequent novels include Short (2017) and The Elephant in the Room (2021).Plot SummaryThe novel's protagonist is 12-year-old Willow Chance, a “highly... Read Counting by 7s Summary
El Deafo is a 2014 semi-autobiographical, graphic novel by American author and illustrator Cece Bell. Bell, who was born deaf, recounts her childhood in the format of a guide starring an anthropomorphic rabbit, “Cece.” The book endeavors to undermine negative representations of deafness by representing Cece’s difference as valid, even empowering, with the assistance of modern technology. Throughout the book, Cece occasionally assumes a superhero persona, “El Deafo.” El Deafo challenges common misconceptions about disabilities... Read El Deafo Summary
Fefu and her Friends is a play by Cuban American playwright Maria Irene Fornés. It premiered in 1977 at the Relativity Media Lab, a small venue on New York’s Lower East Side. Set in 1935 New England, the play concerns a group of women who knew one another in college and gather for a reunion as adults. Within six months, Fefu was produced off-Broadway at the American Place Theatre, earning Fornés her second Obie Award... Read Fefu and Her Friends Summary
Fish in a Tree is a 2015 middle-grade novel by American author Lynda Mullaly Hunt (Shouting at the Rain, One for the Murphys). It follows the story of a middle-school girl named Ally, who is artistically and mathematically talented but unable to read due to her dyslexia. Throughout Ally’s school career, she uses humor, misbehavior, and feigned sickness to distract from her learning difficulty, doing everything in her power to avoid writing and reading tasks... Read Fish in a Tree Summary
Freak the Mighty tells the story of two boys—a slow-learning giant and a genius in a disabled body—who become friends, share adventures, and defend themselves against bullies and social rejection. Published in 1993, Freak the Mighty sold two million copies in nine languages, received multiple awards, and was made into a Golden Globe-nominated film, The Mighty, starring Sharon Stone, Kieran Culkin, Gillian Anderson, and Harry Dean Stanton. Max’s adventures continue in a sequel called Max... Read Freak the Mighty Summary
Ghost Boy: The Miraculous Escape of a Misdiagnosed Boy Trapped Inside His Own Body (2011) is a memoir written by Martin Pistorius with Megan Lloyd Davies. The autobiography details Martin’s childhood misdiagnosis, a mistake that cost him years of his life where he could not communicate with anyone around him. Martin is a native of Johannesburg, South Africa, who at the age of 12 suddenly and mysteriously started losing all control of his muscles and... Read Ghost Boy Summary
Yessenia Lopez—a 16-year-old, wheelchair-bound Puerto Rican girl from inner city Chicago—arrives at ILLC from juvie after violently assaulting her classmate in school. With absent parents and a recently deceased guardian (Tía Nene), she is explosive and struggles to get along with her peers. However, she develops friendships with a few of her roommates and caring adult employees, like Joanne and Jimmie. Though she hates ILLC and finds it to be demeaning, she has nowhere else... Read Good Kings Bad Kings Summary
Hello, Universe (2017) is the third novel by Filipino-American author Erin Entrada Kelly. It is intended for children aged 8 to 12. The title won the 2018 Newbury Medal, and its author has garnered other awards for previous novels, including a Golden Kite Award and an Asian/Pacific American Award for Children’s Literature. Kelly’s other books include Blackbird Fly (2015), The Land of Forgotten Girls (2016), You Go First (2018), and Lalani of the Distant Sea... Read Hello, Universe Summary
“Hop-Frog” (originally titled “Hop Frog; Or, the Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs”) is among the last short stories by American horror and fiction author Edgar Allan Poe. First published in The Flag of Our Union in 1849, “Hop-Frog” explores themes of revenge, “madness,” and dehumanization. Poe explores similar themes in another short story published several years earlier, “The Cask of Amontillado,” a tale of betrayal and vengeance. Such thematic elements recur often in Poe’s work, given that... Read Hop-Frog Summary
Susan Sontag’s 1978 book Illness as Metaphor is an 87-page work of critical theory exploring the language we use to describe disease and its victims. The work was originally published in the New York Review of Books as three long-form essays. Sontag wrote Illness as Metaphor while undergoing treatment for breast cancer, though not mentioned in the text. This genre—critical theoretical examinations of social and cultural events or phenomena—was where Sontag established her reputation. Illness... Read Illness As Metaphor Summary
Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, a children’s novel, was written by Jack Gantos. The book was initially published in 1998 by Square Fish, a trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group; the work was a National Book Award Finalist, an American Library Association notable children’s book, and the School Library Journal’s book of the year. The novel’s 10-year-old protagonist, Joey Pigza, deals with an unnamed hyperactive disorder, abandonment, and academic problems before finding some stability after his... Read Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key Summary
Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s by John Elder Robison is a personal memoir published in 2007. Like Temple Grandin’s Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism and Daniel Tammet’s Born on a Blue Day, Robison’s memoir is a personal account of living with autism spectrum disorder. A New York Times best-seller, the book has subsequently been translated into French, Italian, Portuguese, and German.Look Me in the Eye details Robison’s life growing... Read Look Me In The Eye Summary
Lucky Broken Girl is a middle-grade historical novel by Ruth Behar. Main character Ruthie Mizrahi, an immigrant from Cuba, lives with her parents and brother in 1966 Queens. Together they try to quell their homesickness for Cuba while seeking new opportunities in America. When a car accident injures Ruthie, she becomes bedridden in a full body cast for over a year; during that time, challenges and fears she never anticipated give her a new perspective... Read Lucky Broken Girl Summary
