4 fantastic books about disability for your child’s summer reading list
by Beth
If you missed the post Cece Bell wrote for us last month about her reasons for writing her graphic novel El Deafo, by all means, read that post now! CeCe’s guest post is terrific, and so is her book.
When I introduced CeCe Bell’s guest post, I explained that El Deafo is a loose biographical account of her childhood living with deafness, and that the book had won a Newbery honor this year. What I didn’t explain was just how big an honor that is —
El Deafo was one of only two Newbery honor books this year (Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming was the other one).
CeCe Bell’s El Deafo is near and dear to my heart. It portrays the strength and confidence that can come with using supports to learn, and it brings a positive message that assistive technology of all kinds – like the talking computer I am using right now to compose this post — can be empowering.
The Schneider Family Book Awards, which honor an author or illustrator for the artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences, were named at the same time El Deafo won the Newberry honor. Recipients of the Schneider Family award are selected in three categories: birth through grade school (ages 0–8), middle school (ages 9–13) and teens (ages 14–18). I’ll list this year’s Schneider winnners here so you can add them to El Deafo on your summer reading lists.
- A Boy and a Jaguar, written by Alan Rabinowitz, illustrated by Catia Chien, won the award for young children. It’s a book about Alan Rabinowitz, a boy who felt alienated due to his uncontrollable stutter. Relief comes when he speaks to animals, and he vows to be their voice and keep them from harm.
- Rain Reign, written by Ann M. Martin, won the award for best middle school title. Rose is a young girl on the autism spectrum, and when a superstorm causes a tumult to her life (and the lives of people in her community) she has to make a courageous choice.
- Girls Like Us, written by Gail Giles, won the teen award. Biddy and Quincy, two teens with intellectual disabilities, complete their high school’s special education program and then are placed as roommates – to Biddy’s delight and Quincy’s horror. They find out they have a lot to learn about life from each other — including a sense of family.
Happy reading!
Related Resources on easterseals.com:
We’ve curated storytelling apps that’ll help keep your kids sharp and engaged this summer — and these apps are great for nonverbal children, too!