Recommended Reading: Disability Pride Month!
By Julia DeVarti
It’s Disability Pride Month and we’re celebrating a few of our favorite books centering center disabled stories and voices. This month is a great time to recognize the long legacy of disability activism, and the many many wonderful books that embody the idea of disability pride. These five books are a great place to start as you explore the canon of disability lit!
The Invisible Elephant by Anna Anisimova, illus. Yulia Sidneva, trans. Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp
This translated chapter book is like a beautiful hug of a book! Following the adventures of a young blind girl and her cane-using grandpa, this is a sweet set of stories about imagination and familial love. Readers will even learn the braille alphabet along the way! I know I will be revisiting this beautifully illustrated book any time I need a smile.
Give Me a Sign by Anna Sortino
This super fun YA took me right back to my summer camp days! It's such a sweet love story, and I loved how it centered community, Deaf culture and empowerment, and coming into yourself. Truly such a thoughtful, swoony, summer-y read!
Quietly Hostile by Samantha Irby
Wow, did this book have me laughing! I enjoyed this even more than Samantha Irby’s earlier books (who would have thought it could be possible?!) and I gobbled it up in just two days. Irby is truly one of the best humor writers out there. Read for hilarious and incredible essays on shitting in public, Sex and the City, lesbian nun sex, and more!
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
This is absolutely THE epic fantasy! A ship launches from a distant shore, carrying a blind man and a secretive captain. They are headed to the holy city of Tova, where unrest from the surrounding clans threatens the Priests' seat of power there. What unfolds is an incredibly exciting and thoughtful adventure. Rebecca Roanhorse is an incredible storyteller, and anyone looking to get lost in a completely immersive and political intriguing fantasy world (with a disabled protagonist to boot!) will fall in love with this book. At times dark and at times hopeful, this is absolutely a favorite for me.
Against Technoableism by Ashley Shew
What an incredibly fascinating book! In Against Technoableism, Ashley Shew looks at disability tech and the politics of how we talk about “improving” bodies. Shew includes essays on amputees, neurodivergence and autism, and so much more. Many of the essays completely reframed for me different elements of disability and ableism, and I know this is going to be an incredibly impactful read when it comes out this fall!
