July is a month full of hot holidays and summer festivities, but it is also the month dedicated to spreading awareness and celebrating Disability Pride Month, so today I pulled together some of my favorite novels and memoirs alike that celebrate stories of understanding, overcoming, and living with disabilities.
Disability Pride Month was first proposed when over 1,000 people walked from the White House to Capitol building in March of 1990. Less than four months later, George H. W. Bush signed the “Americans with Disabilities Act,” forever solidifying the month of July as Disability Pride Month.
Many of the books I will be talking about today are available in the front display of our library for easy access to help spread further awareness about often unseen disabilities. The first book is one that I find especially important, being a library on a college campus, “Supporting Neurodiverse College Student Success: A Guide for Librarians, Student Support Services, and Academic Learning Environments” by Elizabeth Coghill and Jeffery Coghill. Simply put, the title says it all, this book is a guide to helping disabled persons to have an easier and more enjoyable college experience. I feel it is important for all people to find ways to help out people in need by educating ourselves on other people’s abilities or inabilities.
“Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability” by Robert Chapman is another book that is a great guide to all people about understanding or coming to terms with the harshness of the world towards disabled persons. Chapman also discusses the reality of queerness and its association to disability, delving into their intertwined history and even present. Part of the issue with society’s view on disability is also discussed in Michelle Lelwica’s “Shameful Bodies: Religion and the Culture of Physical Improvement.” Lewlica takes a different approach from Chapman, diving headfirst into the culture of religion and that harm that it often brings to people who are differently abled.
It is often difficult to encapsulate the realities that some people live and suffer with, Robert Bogdan takes a different approach to express to the audience this experience in “Picturing Disability.” Bogdan crosses the centuries of disability in photography, gathering over 200 images and explaining the context they were taken in. It is often difficult to find representation for disabled persons that isn’t harmful, especially in the media and film industry. “The Problem Body: Projecting Disability in Film” by Sally Chivers and Nicole Markotic explores the world of film, analyzing and critiquing the difference between harming and helping to showcase disability in media today.
Reading memoirs of disabled authors helps to further express the disabled experience, something that can be explored in Rebekah Taussig’s biography, “Sitting Pretty” where she tells the reader about her life living with paralysis. Taussig has been paralyzed from the waist down since age 3 when she fought a harsh battle with cancer. “Sitting Pretty” is a fantastic memoir and provides a powerful perspective on life living in a wheelchair. Another amazing memoir comes from Rachel Adams as she discusses how her life changed when she gave birth to a child with Downs Syndrome. “Raising Henry: A Memoir of Motherhood, Disability, & Discovery” is a deeply moving tale about motherhood and growth, one that I would recommend to any parent struggling with similar circumstances, or even anyone who helps out with children, abled or not.
Disability can be a difficult concept for many children to understand, introducing them to the fact that all people are different can help them process things differently from a young age. “Not So Different” by Shane Burcaw is a kid’s book to do exactly this. Burcaw suffers from Spinal Muscular Atrophy and writes on living life in a wheelchair, explaining that it’s “not so different” from living a life referred to as “normal.” “El Deafo” by Cece Bell is another autobiographical book for kids that helps to explain deafness as a sort of superpower. Bell’s beautiful graphics and wonderful writing is a great way to show young audiences that people with disabilities, especially other kids, are just like them.
Similar to Bell’s novel, “True Biz” by Sara Novic is another book for young adults about deafness, as well as a personal favorite. Novic’s novel is one of the most critically acclaimed books about disability in recent publications for good reason, I would recommend it to anyone even slightly curious about picking it up!
To finish off, I thought I would share what I am currently reading, “All the Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr. Surprisingly, this is only the first time I’ve read this book, though it is one that has been on my list for a very, very long time, yet I love the vivid exposure to living a life with blindness in such a terrifying time. I’ve yet to finish this novel so I will not go too into detail on my opinion, but I may do a review in the future, as well as some others that I did not include in this list but plan to read this Disability Pride Month, so be sure to look out for those! Happy Disability Pride Month!
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