This collection contains materials on the topic of developmental disability from the DIVerse Families bibliography. Developmental disability stories contain individuals with chronic conditions that develop before adulthood. These stories include topics such as autism and Down syndrome.
People of all different abilities make up a growing part of the population. These stories seek to normalize people with disabilities and other health related conditions by helping them and others overcome the stigma.
Browse by Disability and Health:
-
All Kinds of Friends, Even Green!
Ellen B. Senisi
In a school assignment, seven-year-old Moses, who has spina bifida and uses a wheelchair, reflects that his neighbor's disabled iguana resembles him because they both have figured out how to get where they want to be in different ways than those around them.
-
A Manual for Marco: Living, Learning, and Laughing with an Autistic Sibling
Shaila Abdullah
An eight-year-old girl decides to make a list of all the things she likes and dislikes about dealing with her autistic brother.
-
April Witch
Majgull Azelsson and Linda Schenck
Desirée lies in a hospital bed thinking, dreaming. Born severely disabled, she cannot walk or talk, but she has other capabilities. Desirée is an April witch, clairvoyant and omniscient, traveling through time and space into the world denied her. The woman who gave Desirée up at birth subsequently took in three foster daughters, who know nothing of the existence of their fourth “sister.” Sensing that her own time is short, Desirée has decided that one of the others has lived the life she herself deserved. One day, each of the three women receives a mysterious letter that forces her to examine her past and her present—setting in motion a complex fugue of memory, regret, and confrontation that builds to a shattering climax.
-
Armond Goes to a Party: A Book about Asperger's and Friendship
Nancy Carlson
Armond doesn't want to go to Felicia's birthday party. Parties are noisy, disorganized, and smelly--all things that are hard for a kid with Asperger's. Worst of all is socializing with other kids. But with the support of Felicia and her mom, good friends who know how to help him, he not only gets through the party, but also has fun. When his mom picks him up, Armond admits the party was not easy, but he feels good that he faced the challenge--and that he's a good friend.
-
A Step Toward Falling
Cammie McGovern
When their inaction during an attack on a disabled girl earns them community service at a center for people with disabilities, Emily and Lucas bond while trying to make up for their mistake, and wonder if they can make it right with the girl who suffered because of them.
-
Autism and Me: Sibling Stories
Ouisie Shapiro
In these moving essays, children tell their stories of what it is like to live with a sibling who has autism.
-
Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability
Jennifer Bartlett, Sheila Black, and Michael Northen
Beauty is a verb is the first of its kind: a high-quality anthology of poetry by American poets with physical disabilities. Poems and essays alike consider how poetry, coupled with the experience of disability, speaks to the poetics of each poet included. The collection explores first the precursors whose poems had a complex (and sometimes absent) relationship with disability, such as Vassar Miller, Larry Eigner, and Josephine Miles. It continues with poets who have generated the Crip Poetics Movement, such as Petra Kuppers, Kenny Fries, and Jim Ferris. Finally, the collection explores the work of poets who don't necessarily subscribe to the identity of "crip-poetics" and have never before been published in this exact context. These poets include Bernadette Mayer, Rusty Morrison, Cynthia Hogue, and C.S. Giscombe. The book crosses poetry movements--from narrative to language poetry--and speaks to and about a number of disabilities including cerebral palsy, deafness, blindness, multiple sclerosis, and aphasia due to stroke, among others.
-
Be Quiet, Marina!
Kirsten DeBear
A story of how two girls, one with cerebral palsy and one with Down syndrome, become friends.
-
Caterpillars Can’t Swim
Liane Shaw
Two boys look to the water for escape, but for very different reasons. For sixteen-year-old Ryan, the water is where he finds his freedom. Ever since childhood, when he realized that he would never walk like other people, he has loved the water where gravity is no longer his enemy. But he never imagined he would become his small town's hero by saving a schoolmate from drowning. Jack is also attracted to the water, but for him it's the promise of permanent escape. Disappearing altogether seems better than living through one more day of high school where he is dogged by rumors about his sexuality. He's terrified that coming out will alienate him from everyone in town - and crush his adoring mother. Ryan saves Jack's life, but he also keeps his secret. Their bond leads to a grudging friendship, and an unexpected road-trip to Comic Con with Ryan's best friend Cody, the captain of the swim team. The unlikely trio ends up subverting preconceptions and prejudices of their own and of those around them.
-
Chester and Gus
Cammie McGovern
Chester, a service dog, is adopted into a family where he becomes a companion to Gus, a ten-year-old boy with nonverbal autism, who initially challenges Chester by requiring a different kind of friendship.
-
Clara Hale: Mother to Those Who Needed One
Bob Italia
Presents the life of the New York woman whose love of children led her to establish a foster care program to help babies born addicted to drugs.
-
Disability and Families
Hilary W. Poole
Looks at the many different types of disabilities that exist, and discusses how these situations can be a challenge for families, but also a source of great strength.
-
(Don't) Call Me Crazy
Kelly Jensen
A Washington Post Best Children’s Book of 2018Who’s Crazy? What does it mean to be crazy? Is using the word crazy offensive? What happens when a label like that gets attached to your everyday experiences? To understand mental health, we need to talk openly about it. Because there’s no single definition of crazy, there’s no single experience that embodies it, and the word itself means different things—wild? extreme? disturbed? passionate?—to different people. In (Don’t) Call Me Crazy, thirty-three actors, athletes, writers, and artists offer essays, lists, comics, and illustrations that explore a wide range of topics:their personal experiences with mental illness,how we do and don’t talk about mental health,help for better understanding how every person’s brain is wired differently,and what, exactly, might make someone crazy. If you’ve ever struggled with your mental health, or know someone who has, come on in, turn the pages . . . and let’s get talking.
-
Emily in Love
Susan Goldman Rubin
A developmentally-disabled fourteen-year-old faces the challenges of her classes at a "regular" high school, a new job, and a budding romance.
-
Every Turtle Counts
Sara Hoagland Hunter
When seven-year-old Mimi finds a frozen sea turtle on the beach, she refuses to believe that it will die.
-
Extraordinary People with Disabilities
Deborah Kent and Kathryn A. Quinlan
Profiles seven dozen people throughout history with various physiccal or mental disabilities.
-
Fade to Us
Julia Day
Brooke's summer is going to be EPIC -- having fun with her friends and a job that lets her buy a car. Then her new stepfather announces his daughter is moving in. Brooke has always longed for a sibling, so she's excited about spending more time with her stepsister. But she worries, too. Natalie has Asperger's--and Brooke's not sure how to be the big sister that Natalie needs. After Natalie joins a musical theater program, Brooke sacrifices her job to volunteer for the backstage crew. She's mostly there for Natalie, but Brooke soon discovers how much she enjoys being part of the show. Especially sweet is the chance to work closely with charming and fascinating Micah--the production's stage manager. When her summer finally comes to an end, will Brooke finally have the family she so desperately wants--and the love she's only dreamed about?
-
Fighting for Dontae
Mike Castan
When Mexican American seventh-grader Javier is assigned to work with a special education class and connects with Dontae, who has both physical and mental disabilities, his reputation among gang members and drug abusers no longer seems very important.
-
Forrest Gump
Winston Groom
Six foot six, 242 pounds, and possessed of a scant IQ of 70, Forrest Gump is the lovable, surprisingly savvy hero of this classic comic tale. His early life may seem inauspicious, but when the University of Alabama’s football team drafts Forrest and makes him a star, it sets him on an unbelievable path that will transform him from Vietnam hero to world-class Ping-Pong player, from wrestler to entrepreneur. With a voice all his own, Forrest is telling all in a madcap romp through three decades of American history.
-
I Am Nuchu
Brenda Stanley
Upon his parents' 1981 divorce, Cal Burton goes from being a popular, comfortable Spokane basketball all-star to a resident of a Ute Indian reservation in Utah, where apathy, poor living conditions, racism, and bitterness over a decades-old family tragedy change his life.
-
Ian's Walk: A Story about Autism
Laurie Lears
Julie can't wait to go to the park and feed the ducks with her big sister, Tara. There's only one problem. Her little brother, Ian, who has autism, wants to go, too. Ian doesn't have the same reactions to all the sights and sounds that his sisters have, and Julie thinks he looks silly. But when he wanders off on his own, she must try to see the world through his eyes in order to find him.
-
Imagine Me on a Sit-Ski!
George Moran
Billy and his classmates, who are physically challenged, learn that they can go skiing just like other youngsters when they are fitted with special equipment, such as a sit-ski, and feel the freedom and exhilaration of a sport from which they once were excluded.
-
I'm Here
Peter H. Reynolds
In a crowded park, a boy makes an airplane out of a piece of paper carried to him by a gentle breeze, sends it on its way, and watches a new friend bring it back to him.
-
Janine
Maryann Cocca-Leffler
Janine is one of a kind. She focuses on the positive while navigating life with disabilities. She makes a difference just by being herself
-
Keeping Up with Roo
Sharlee Mullins Glenn
Gracie has always had a special bond with her Aunt Roo, who is mentally disabled, but that relationship starts to change when Gracie begins school.