Request for Information: YA books featuring characters with disabilities

[trouble]

Just what it says on the tin, folks. I'm looking for books, generally aimed at the Young Adult market, that feature a character with a disability. You don't have to have read them yourself! I'm going to ask my YA librarian next time I'm in my fancy library downtown, too.

Please link around - I'm going to be dropping this into my various dropping-places over the next few days, too.

Thank you!

ETA:

Feel free to recommend children's books as well. Genre or non-genre is fine. I'm looking for anything here.

Don't worry if the portrayal is bad. Feel free to flag it up, though.

Feel free to plug your own book. If it hasn't been released yet, please leave a release date.

Thank you!

Comments

[sasha_feather]

Izzy, Willy-Nilly by Cynthia Voigt is fantastic.

[trouble]

Ooh! I just googled that up, and it looks interesting. Thank you!

[lauredhel]

Ooh, watching with interest. Are you going to ask for children's book recs next? *perks up ears*

[trouble]

I shall!

[sqbr]

I'm assuming you only want ones where it's dealt with well? Or any reference at all?

I remmeber I had mixed feelings about the portrayal of mental illness in Pardon me you're stepping on my eyeball. Beyond that..HMM. I'll ponder.

[trouble]

Anything at all is good, but maybe flag up the ones that are either very problematic or very well done?

Thank you!

[meloukhia]

Shark Girl, by Kelly Bingham, springs to mind because I read it recently.

[trouble]

That sounds familiar.

[pandorasblog]

One I can unreservedly recommend is A Different Life by Lois Keith, which I identified a lot with in my teens: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Different-Life-Lois-Keith/dp/0704349469

Others I vaguely recall: Deenie by Judy Blume involved scoliosis, but I don't recall how well it was dealt with. I think it left a slightly sour taste in my mouth because the protagonist was kind of mean about other kids who were different. Also, I remember the kid in her book Then Again, Maybe I Won't going through tests for a digestive disorder, which interested me because you all but NEVER see my kind of condition represented in books.

[trouble]

I remember both those last ones, but I don't think I actually read them. Thank you!

[lauredhel]

I don't know how suitable this is - it's not specifically-labelled YA, but it's definitely YA-appropriate: Bujold's "Sharing Knife" quadrilogy. This is decent-quality easy-read fantasy/romance with good female characters. One of the two main protagonists has an arm amputation, which is explored in a matter of fact way, but which isn't the prime/only storyline in the books.

[sasha_feather]

Second this! I really liked these books.

[lauredhel]

In picture books, Shaun Tan's "The Red Tree". This is not your kindergarten's picture book.


The Lost Thing, by the same author, isn't explicitly about disability, but the bottletop-collecting, machine-befriending protagonist may well be on the spectrum from some of the clues dropped. He's embedded, however, in a deeply dysfunctional and disconnected society. This is perhaps our favourite picture book ever.

[sasha_feather]

When I was a youngling in grade school I read The Story of My Life by Helen Keller. But I was a somewhat advanced reader? So I have a hard time knowing if that is age-appropriate or not just because I read it. I probably also read other books about her that were specifically written for kids, and other books about blind people and leader dogs. The formation of a young disability activist becomes clear!

Mary in the Little House on the Prairie books is blind.

[hatman]

Killobyte, by Piers Anthony. Not sure if it specifically counts as a YA novel, but I read it in my early-to-mid teens. (And I tend to find most of Anthony's works, looking back, to be somewhat juvenile...) Wiki article has a plot summary and further info. One of the main characters is a suicidal teenage diabetic (a character I sympathized with a fair bit at that age), and the other is an ex-cop who was paralyzed from the waist down. They meet in the world of a fully VR MMORPG (the book was written back in the days of 14.4 modems, BTW), which they both gravitated to as a way to deal with their respective disabilities.

[phoenixsong]

Stacey McGill from the Baby-Sitters Club series had diabetes, which was a recurring issue (as well as how her parents reacted to her illness). After going down memory lane via Wiki, it seems there was another character near the end of the series, Abby Stevenson, who had multiple allergies. Another of the sitters, Jessi Ramsey, learns some ASL while sitting for a deaf child.

[(Anonymous)]

Belonging by Virginia Scott is one that I remember from my tweens, but I haven't read it since I was in high school, and can't accurately judge whether or not it's problematic.

A lot of the Cynthia Voigt books involve characters with learning disabilities and mental illness, with varying degrees of sensitivity. (I'm thinking specifically of the Tillerman Cycle, which has its high and low points, IIRC.)

[passerine]

also by Cynthia Voigt: Izzy, Willy-Nilly, which was about a girrl who lost her leg in a drunk driving accident. Decent portrayal, IIRC, though it's been years since I read it.

[capriuni]

I've had several people recommend Anne McCaffrey's Brain and Brawn sci-fi series (written in partnership with others) to me, as wonderful books about disability.

I haven't read any of them. The premise of the first book (Which has been rec'd specifically), The Ship who Sang is described at McCaffrey's website thusly:

(quote) Helva had been born human, but only her brain had been saved and implanted into the titanium body of an intergalactic scout ship. But first she had to choose a human partner, to soar with her through the daring adventures and exhilarating escapades in space. (unquote)

And I just can't bring myself to pick it up.

[capriuni]

Oh, I thought of another, which I actually remember enjoying: Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars (might be classified as a children's book, don't remember), about a girl and her ralationship with her brother who has Down's Syndrome.

[passerine]

Children's, not YA, and a bit dated by now but I loved them as a kid: Jean Little's books Mine for Keeps (main character has cerebral palsy) and From Anna (MC immigrates to Canada from Nazi-era Germany and itLs discovered that she canLt read because she has a serious visual impairment that can only be partially corrected). IIRC Jean Little has limited vision herself.

[killing_rose]

And From Anna's sequel, Listen for the Singing. There, the main character deals with the differences between her visual impairment and blindness when her brother loses his vision. Passerine has a good point--they seem dated to me now, but I loved the two books when I was between the ages of 5 and 12.

Carver, which dealt with blindness, is another children's book that I remember; it's been years since I read it, but I recall some wince worthy moments.

[slave2tehtink]

If you can get ahold of a copy, Light A Single Candle by Beverly Butler is good. I wish like hell I could find my copy.

[eruthros]

Oh, thank you for reminding me about that book! I really enjoyed it when I was a kid -- now I'm interested in rereading it to see how my recollection holds up.

[(Anonymous)]

"The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett, but I don't think it dealt with it very well.

[softestbullet]

I never read the book, but in the movies it was like, you're only disabled because you stay indoors and think you are! Fresh air fixes everything!

[animeshon]

I have to admit I'm a little horrified that I don't think I've read any except for Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time which is an amazing book with fabulous insight into Asperger Syndrome.

Now I'm going to have to check out the rec's that you have and improve my knowledge

[aphrodite]

The love interest in Catherine Jinks' Evil Genius is (secretly) Sonja, a teenage girl with cerebral palsy (you find out about halfway through).
Sonja has been using her friend (a nurse)'s identity and photo online to have discussions about advanced mathematical theories with Cadel, the main character. She's a bit of a genius, herself and although sometimes gets the 'heroic martyr'/'love interest in trouble' billing, is not without agency.

Sonja is also in the sequel, Genius Squad.

[ginny_t]

Has anyone recommended Izzy Willy-Nilly by Madeleine L'Engle? It's been a very long time since I read it, so I can't remember if it's failtastic, but it surfaced from memory just this morning. I remember at least one fail-free incident in the book.

[ginny_t]

Oh, I see someone got there ahead of me, and I got the author wrong. *hides*

[curiousities]

I was at a children's and young people justice and literature event recently where this topic was touched on and it made me want to find YA books that deal well with disability (haven't gotten that far yet).

The speaker who brought it up was Suzanne Gervay whose book Butterflies is about a girl living with burns. It sold out straight away at the event's bookshop but it is definitely one I want to read (first chapter, reading notes, study guide etc as well as link to her own article about disability and YA lit are all here: http://www.sgervay.com/butterflies.php). She did proper research with doctors, young people and their families and the book seems to have gotten a great reception from young people. She was also invited to speak at The World Burn Conference.

IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) has an annual reading list of Outstanding Books For Young People with Disabilities (http://www.ibby.org/index.php?id=271) but I think you must have to order it so not sure what its content is like.

[lauredhel]

I'm stepping a bit outside the brief here, but Westerfeld's Uglies/Pretties/Specials series, while not specifically about disability-in-our-time, raises some good talking points on the construction of normalcy.

[dunvi]

Hm. I'll try my best, but I was never good at reading YA books.

The Burn Journals by Brent Runyon - but it's non-fiction, I don't know if you're including those - it's an amazing memoir of a 14 year old's suicide attempt.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson - PTSD. It's really good.

I can try to think of some more, but I have to go.

[(Anonymous)]

"Bus Girl", by Gretchen Josephson, is a collection of poems that I really liked. She's a woman with Down syndrome, and while this isn't specifically a YA book, she wrote some of the poems when she was a young woman, and the writing is very accessible. I found this description online: http://www.qualitymall.org/products/prod5.asp?prodid=4697

--Lisa

anti-recommendation, probably

[(Anonymous)]

_What Katy Did_ is a old kids' book about a kid who went playing on the swing she was told to avoid, fell, and was stricken with bedridden invalidism, unspecified type. I liked it as a child, but from what I remember, it's really shockingly moralistic[1] and cutesy. There's a lot of discussion about chronic pain, though, and I think there was some fairly frank description of what changes she and her family had to make in day-to-day life.

I never know how to estimate intended reader age, but this was about the difficulty level of _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_.

[1] She is injured because she was Bad. A large part of the book is her learning to be Good, which I think gets reflected in her physical health and healing.

Re: anti-recommendation, probably

[malka]

Sorry, I didn't realize I was logged out.

[coldneedles.livejournal.com]

Crazy by Benjamin Lebert has the protagonist as paralysed on one side (which I think might be autobiographical). It has a lot of sex and swearing and is a bit misogynistic in places, but I don't remember it being problematic in terms of disability, except for the constant use of crazy to describe being cool or daring. Got lots of rave reviews (especially in Germany where it was first published), but as a book I found it kind of average.

Haven't read it yet but Harriet McBryde Johnson wrote a YA book called Accidents of Nature.

Also, for the younger YA market Jacqueline Wilson wrote The Illustrated Mum, where the mother has bipolar. The mother was protrayed as flighty and irresponsible but also loveable, which is still problematic, but far better than the usual depiction of parents with mental illness as violent abusers. She also wrote Sleepovers where the main character has a mentally and physically disabled sister, but I don't remember a good deal abot it.

[jesse_the_k]

Harriet's Accidents of Nature is outstanding: the protaganist has, up until that fateful summer, avoided being around other people with disabilities. She learns pride at a disabled-only summer camp.

[silver_spotted]

The first book I thought of was Meli Melo which is a French-language YA novel, so I don't know if that helps you. But I do remember it since grade 6 (which was several years ago now!) so I guess it made an impression.

There's also Kissing Doorknobs by Terry Spencer Hesser, which is about a young/teen? girl being diagnosed and dealing with OCD

Madeleine L'Engle's The Young Unicorns features a young/teen girl who is blind and also an aspiring concert pianist. The book's pretty over the top though, including a gang subplot.