It's Disability Book Week!
Recommended reads
It’s come to my attention that this week is Disability Book Week. I personally read books by and about people with disabilities year-round, but I am happy to take this opportunity to highlight a few titles.
Outside Myself by Kristen Witucki is a moving, unusual novel about the friendship between a young white girl who is blind, and an older Black gentleman, also blind, who works in the library for the blind. As I wrote in my endorsement for the book when it was first published, “Rich in sensory detail, this story offers rare and authentic insight into navigating the world without sight, but it’s really about loneliness and making connections and being human.”
I am looking forward to re-visiting this novel with my graduate seminar students, one of whom has served as the principal of a school for the blind in Fiji.
The Space You Left Behind is a novel-in-verse by poet and writer Ona Gritz. The main character, sixteen-year-old Cara, thinks that boys stay in the friend zone around her because she has cerebral palsy. But then she meets and connects with a boy who shares her interest in true crime who doesn’t seem to care about her disability. In addition to exploring what it's like to live with a disability, Gritz's sensitive and moving verse novel alights on contemporary issues such as donor and LGBTQ parents, and the popularity of mystery podcasts. Intended for reluctant readers, this is a quick and engaging read that would appeal to all ages.
The Unheard by Josh Swiller is a nonfiction account of a young deaf man’s stint in Zambia as a Peace Corps volunteer. This one particularly interested me as the mother of a deaf daughter, and as someone who almost went to Africa via the Peace Corps. (I had been assigned to Cameroon, but I wound up coming to Japan instead.) Part comedy of errors, part harrowing adventure story, it is a fascinating memoir.
Here are some more titles featuring individuals with disabilities (including some of mine) for you to consider.