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Celebrate Disability Pride Month with Middle Grande and YA Novels

16 Jul
Just Like Me: 40 Neurologically and Physically Diverse People Who Broke Stereotypes by Louise Gooding. Cover image of drawings of a variety of people included in the book included Frida Khalo, Greta Thunberg, and Winnie Harlow.
Cover of AIR by Monica Roe. Features a quote What happens when your dream gets turned upside down? Features a youth in a wheel chair flipping up in the air.
Cover of Audiobook Song For a Whale by Lynne Kelly. Audiobook Read by Abigail Revasch with the Author. Features a drawing of a silhouette of a person standing on a dock with a whale under the water. Green, blue, and purple streaks surround them.

July is Disability Pride Month! Here is a round up of our favorite middle grade and young adult books that feature disabled characters, providing the perfect opportunity to see one’s self reflected or to learn about other people’s experiences. All featured titles are available in our BCCLS collection. Interested in picturebooks featuring disabled characters? Check out our Disability Pride Month part 1 post here!

Middle Grade

Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly (large print, physical book, e-audiobook)
Deafness
Twelve old Iris is great with technology, but often feels isolated by her peers because of her deafness. When she learns about Blue 55, a whale who can’t speak to other whales, she decides to use her talents to create a device to sing to him.

Wonder by R.J. Palacio (physical book, eBook, large print, e-audiobook, audiobook on CD, audiobook media player)
Facial difference
Ten old Auggie Pullman is about to make a difficult transition from being homeschooled to a private school with other kids. The situation is further complicated by his facial differences caused by Treacher Collins syndrome. Auggie must navigate his new environment and how his peers treat him because of his appearance. 

Shiny Misfits by Maysoon Zayid (physical book, eBook)
Cerebral palsy
Bay Ann’s tap dance performance at the school talent show is overshadowed by her crush, Alyee Maq, catching her after a fall. The moment goes viral with people “inspired” by Bay Ann’s cerebral palsy instead of her dancing talent. 

Maysoon Zayid: The Girl Who Can by Dr. Seema Yasmin (physical book)
Cerebral palsy
Maysoon dreamt of being an actress, comedian and dancer. Only problem? As a Muslim girl with cerebral palsy, people often didn’t believe that she could. As the title suggests, Maysoon can – defying any odds set against her! 

Just Like Me: 40 Neurologically and Physically Diverse People Who Broke Stereotypes by Louise Gooding (physical book)
Various Disabilities
A collection of true stories from famous figures like Simone Biles, Daniel Radcliffe, Selena Gomez and Greta Thunberg.

Air by Monica Roe (physical book, e-audiobook)
Wheelchair use
Twelve ½-year old Emelyn has used a wheelchair her whole life. She dreams of doing wheelchair motocross, but her community makes plenty of assumptions about what she should want instead, especially since the death of her mother in an accident. Emmie and her best friends hatch a plan to make her dreams a reality.

My Aunt is a Monster by Reimena Yee (physical book, Libby ebook) 
Blindness
Safia is used to experiencing adventure only through audiobooks. But that quickly changes when she’s sent to live with her mysterious aunt, Lady Whimsy. It turns out Safia’s blindness isn’t limiting her ability for adventure after all. 

Young Adult

Cover of Time and Time Again by Chatham Greenfield. A green haired teen sits on a blue car holding a pink cane facing a brunette teen leaning on the car. There are palm fronds overhead and the ocean in the distance.
Cover of Disability Visibility: 17 First-Person Stories for Today Adapted for Young Adults edited by Alice Wong. Multicolored geographic designs decorate the cover.
Cover of All the Noise at Once by DeAndra Davis. Two African American Youth are pictured. One has a shaved head and the other has dreadlocks and is wearing headphones. The book is the winner of the William C. Morris Debut from the American Library Association.

All the Noise at Once by DeAndra Davis (physical book)
Autism
Aiden finally makes it on the football team with the star quarterback – his brother, Brandon. Their teammates wonder how Aiden’s autism will affect their season. A fight breaks out, Brandon is charged with assaulting an officer, and Aiden must clear his brother’s name. 

Something More by Jackie Khalilieh (physical book, ebook)
Autism
Fifteen year old Jessie is determined to keep her recent autism diagnosis a secret as she enters high school. Despite the goals she set for herself, her plans go awry when two boys steal her heart.

Time and Time Again by Chatham Greenfield (physical book)
IBS
Phoebe has been stuck in a Groundhog Day-esque loop for almost a month until a car crash with her crush, Jess. After the accident, Phoebe and Jess are stuck in the time loop together…and that might not be so bad. But Phoebe fears what’s on the other side of it all.

You Started It by Jackie Khalilieh (physical book)
Anxiety, IBS
Seventeen year old Jamie Taher-Foster has senior year all planned out – that is, until her boyfriend, Ben, breaks up with her. She decides the perfect way to get him back is by pretending to date a TikTok dancer named Axel. In time, their relationship might not be so fake after all.

The Tank Chair series by Manabu Yashiro (physical books)
Wheelchair use
Nagi has to use a wheelchair after taking a bullet to protect his sister, Shizuka. After he recovers, the two become a dangerous assassin duo.

Disability Visibility: 17 First Person Stories for Today adapted for Young Adults edited by Alice Wong (physical book)
Various disabilities
Essays written by disabled people about their lives: the complexities, facing ableism, and wisdom. 

Written by:
Alison Woodley
Information and Digital Services Assistant

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Award Winning Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction: The Last Cuentista, Night Owls, and The Darkness Outside Us

18 Jun

The Last Cuentista
by Donna Barba Higuera
The Last Cuentista won the prestigious Newbery Medal and Pura Belpré Award in 2022. This post apocalyptic Middle Grade Novel starts just as comet is scheduled to hit and cause catastrophic damage to the earth. Petra’s parents want her to follow in their footsteps and study science, but she longs to be a storyteller, like her abuelita (grandmother). Her family are part of the few picked to travel to a new world to start over. Petra is supposed to sleep through the transit to a new world, but when she wakes up she discovers that the other sleeping passengers who have survived have had their mind’s erased by a genetically modified collective who seeks peace through wiping out all memories of Earth and its culture. This story is definitely a bit dark and could be triggering for those who have recently lost family members themselves, but it also brings with it a sense of hope that we can each do our parts to create a better world. I also think its message of the importance of remembering our traditions and stories and how they can be an uplifting source of good is an important one that will resonate with many.

Night Owls
by A.R. Vishny
Night Owls is a winner of a National Jewish Book Award Winner and Sydney Taylor Book Award. This paranormal fantasy for teens set in New York, focuses on two “sisters” who are estries (female vampires who shape shift into owls and feed on men, as depicted in Jewish folklore). Molly is in love with a human girl who goes missing and will need her sister, Clara’s help to find her, despite Clara’s rules that neither of them should ever fall in love. Boaz, the young Jewish man who works at their theater, may also be of help or a hindrance as Clara tries to stop her own romantic feelings towards him from taking flight. I found this to be an engaging story and I enjoyed the exploration of family relationships as well as romantic and friendship bonds that the story explores.

The Darkness Outside Us
by Eliot Schrefer
The Darkness Outside Us was one of the Stonewall Honor books chosen by the ALA, for LGBTQIA+ Young Adult Literature in 2022. The story focuses on two 17 year-olds who are sent into space for a rescue mission of the one’s sister. The story is told from the perspective of the child of wealthy industrialist from a liberal country and the other teen is from the only other country left on earth, which is more conservative and communist. Despite their differences, they are drawn to each other. This novel will appeal to to older teens who enjoy their Science Fiction with a bit of romance. I enjoyed the epistemological exploration throughout the story. Also refreshing is that the story feels truly humanity against their environment and circumstances with the two main characters having different perspectives, but neither being portrayed as “right.”

These books are so well crafted that they also have appeal to adults as well as teens. We read The Last Cuentista for our Science Fiction and Fantasy discussion in March and Night Owls in April. The Darkness Outside Us is scheduled for the July discussion.

Sincerely,
Aimee Harris
Information and Digital Services Manager

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