This week's guest contributor is Stacy Graber.  She comes from great academic roots having worked on her Ph.D at Arizona State University and she is currently an assistant professor in the English Department at Youngstown State University, which has been one of the hotbeds for the study of Young Adult Literature for many years and the location of the longtime YSU English Festival. I am thrilled to report that I will be attending the Festival this year as one of the keynote speakers along with Matt de la Peña. I am very excited to be working with Stacy again.  She helps us end the year with a thoughtful posting.

There are so many great renovation shows (e.g., Property Brothers, Rehab Addict, House Crashers, etc.).  One program I particularly like is the HGTV series, Love It or List It.  It seems like the Hunger Games of reno-shows because, once the contractor exposes what lurks behind those walls, the budget is history and that means the loss of a second bathroom or District 12.  However, the authentic meaning of the program is revealed in the final five minutes when the interior designer, Hilary Farr, gestures regally at the updated family home and asks the featured couple the all-important question: “Are you going to love it, or list it?”  
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Understand that Hilary’s question is philosophically larger than an individual choice (i.e., it’s not just about whether the couple intends to stay put or live elsewhere). The refrain more broadly prompts contemplation on the politics of moving.  Or, put differently, the show is an extended rumination on place loyalty.  Each episode indirectly asks the question: Do we have some kind of ethical obligation to the places where we live (e.g., homes, communities, cities)?             

I was thinking about Love It or List It as I prepared to teach Jack Gantos’ memoir/meditation on the fate of an enclave of homes in rural Pennsylvania, _Dead End in Norvelt (2011).  That is, I could clearly hear the competing values of Hilary (the designer) and David (the realtor) reenacted in the verbal battles between Mom and Dad Gantos over whether they should remain in Pennsylvania or move to Florida. 
In the context of the narrative, the parents’ debate goes like this:  For Dad Gantos, Norvelt signals only decay.  He carps constantly about how the town is eroding, physically and economically, and even participates in its disintegration by helping the local mortician to relocate individual homes to a community in West Virginia.  Conversely, Mom Gantos refuses to call time of death on the place Eleanor Roosevelt built, and instead dedicates vigorously to restoration and community building with passionate civic investment.
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This is a particularly important conversation where I work (Youngstown, Ohio), as it is for many post-industrial spaces throughout the Midwest.  For instance, the subject of place loyalty also appears in the The Oxford Project (2010), an Alex Award-winning mash-up of photo journalism and creative nonfiction focused on the tenacity of a community of residents in small-town Iowa.  

In Dead End in Norvelt, Gantos provocatively asks: What do we do with these aged, stately homes (and towns) that have fallen into disrepair?  The question is then contextualized in hard, historical truths about the exploitation of labor, land, and resources.  And the problem becomes even thornier when, according to the author, Jack’s father is complicit in the “vanishing act” of Norvelt’s disappearance.

Dad Gantos’ reasoning isn’t all wrong (i.e., he is motivated by the desire to care for his family and claim his portion of the American Dream), nor is it right as he replicates, in microcosm, the mercenary behavior of big businesses that reap fat profits, roll out of town, and refuse to acknowledge what is left behind, similar to Michael Moore’s argument in the classic documentary, Roger and Me (1989).
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Another related point of interest: In Gantos’ book, homes are proxies for human lives, as Miss Volker’s obituary for a house destroyed by fire makes clear.  The life of the home adopts a human presence (and its death a ghostly aura) when it is consumed in loyal service like the lives of the coal miners referred to many times throughout the text.    
In this simple meditation on place loyalty, Gantos causes the reader to wonder what responsibility is owed to places and, ultimately, to each other.

​So, what would a teacher do with this information?  One answer might be found in the seductive “tricks” or “strategies” for “making do” (de Certeau, 1984, pp. 18-19; 30) practiced by Mom Gantos as she makes a case for remaining in the depressed community of Norvelt.  Specifically, Mom Gantos puts into practice the identical “tactics” described by de Certeau (1984) in The Practice of Everyday Life that the less powerful in society might implement in response to oppression (p. 40).  For instance, Mom Gantos attempts to establish a barter system by offering a doctor his fee in trade, she creates a secondary economy of gift casseroles, and she does a portion of food gathering by mushrooming at the town dump.  These actions may seem trivial in the grand scheme of political resistance, but they do possess a radical quality in that they represent a localized effort to respond to and transform social and economic circumstances that would otherwise seem overwhelming.  
   
Translated to an exercise in composition, I see Dead End in Norvelt as a blueprint for teaching the proposal argument, the most hopeful of claim types because proposal requires not only identification of a problem, but a protocol for solution. 
I think Gantos’ book would particularly resonate with students who live in places similar to where I live (i.e., an area of the country pejoratively referred to as the Rust Belt).  That is because Dead End in Norvelt makes transparent the process by which the present came to be for such places and, at the same time, offers poetic and humanitarian reasons for people to reclaim, repurpose, and remain. 
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One final thought: Although we know Dad Gantos eventually gets his way and the family moves from Pennsylvania, Mom Gantos still embodies de Certeau’s vision of the trickster in that her actions effectively destabilize the acquisitive logic of capitalism, one casserole at a time. 

Stacy Graber is an Assistant Professor of English at Youngstown State University. Her areas of interest include critical theory, pedagogy, popular culture, and young adult literature.
Please address questions/comments to: [email protected]
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It is my turn again.  I appreciate the support that the blog receives when I have guest contributors. I will do my best to add to the conversation. Last week was a whirlwind of activity. My youngest daughter, Abbey, got married in Salt Lake City. It was wonderful and beautifully winter white. She has attended an ALAN workshop with me and she is one of my only guaranteed readers. Best wishes for Michael and Abbey as they embark on their journey with the love of their combined families. (Thanks for reading through my personal indulgence.)

I would like to quickly cover three things in the midst of the holiday rush:  qrevisit three novels, remind everybody about the authors that are visiting the UNLV young adult and children’s literature conference during June of 2016, and provide links to the proposals for workshops and breakout sessions for the conference.

Rereading, Music, and Adolescent Resiliency.
All kinds of ideas occur to me during the ALAN Workshop (Jennifer has here proposals forms posted here for the 2016 ALAN Workshop) and, in a good year, I start pursuing the ideas even while I am trying to inhale all of the wonderful new books. One of the ideas involved reading new books and revisiting older ones with deliberate references to music. I started with a fairly new book, Breakout by Kevin Emerson. Emerson offers a fresh look at a kid who just loves rock and roll and how we, as a adults in school settings, nurture or block their musical interests. I loved this book and kept thinking about all of the students who wandered in and out of my classes with drumsticks in their back pocket and Guitar Player or Rolling Stone sticking out of their backpacks. You know, the same kids in the late 90’s who still knew about Ginger Baker and Alvin Lee. I liked these kids even though they were often disconnected with class activities. I know I didn’t do enough to engage them or offer them books that matched their interests. I am sure most of you YA advocates who are in the classroom are doing a much better job than I did. Thanks, keep at it.

My first reread was Matthew Quick’s Sorta of Like a Rockstar. I am a big fan of Quick’s other YA fiction, Boy 21 and Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock; however, I had forgotten the power of his first YA novel. He tackles a multitude of issues, homelessness, poverty, bullying, religious belief, autism, inept parents, and death. Most importantly, I like how this inspirational book focuses in on the power of friendship and charity. It was a great reminder for me during this season about how incredibly generous adolescents often are despite their own situations and hardships. Too often, we focus in on their selfishness and narrow view of the world. In reality, they are kind, giving, and open to opportunity. I am sure that many of you have witnessed a number of random acts of kindness during these last few weeks of school before the winter break. The novel’s protagonist, Amber, might seem too good to be real, but the truth is, I knew a lot of kids just like her when I worked in high schools. Make sure this book is on your shelves.

The next reread was Jordan Sonnenblick’s debut novel, Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie. Again, if you know this book you might think it is too somber for a holiday read, but I disagree. Like the Grinch, I felt that my heart grow a few sizes as I reread this book. Okay, no spoilers, but the book deals with cancer, family, friendship, and a school concert. I loved reading how Steven dealt with the challenges he faced through his talent as a drummer. For a time, for me, this character captured the embodiment of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s flow experience as he practiced the drums. Isn’t it great that adolescents often accomplish some of the very emotions and moods we hope for ourselves?

All three books helped me frame a new research project (more on that at another time). For the purpose of this post, however, all three reminded me of the power of adolescents to be creative, persistent, and resilient. I hope you read them for the first time if they are they are new to you. If you have read them, I highly recommend them as a books worth rereading during the break. You will walk away with your confidence renewed in the power of adolescents to do great things.

Guess who is coming to Las Vegas and UNLV during the week of June 13 through June 17, 2016?
UNLV has been extremely welcoming and through the Zieter Center I will be hosting another Young Adult and Children’s Literature conference. I can’t stress enough how important it is to visit the blog often and check on the link in the heading for the conference. Over the next several weeks, the links to the keynote authors, keynote academic speakers, conference registration, conference housing, and to the people who will be offering workshops and breakout sessions will all be posted.
Our fabulous author keynotes, in no particular order, will be:
Virginia Euwer Wolff— Make Lemonade, True Believer, and This Full House
Jason Reynolds— When I Was the Greatest, The Boy in the Black Suit, and All American Boys
Meg Medina— Mango, Abuela, and Me, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, and Tía Isa Wants a Car
Andrew Smith— Winger, Grasshopper Jungle, and 100 Sideways Miles
Alan Sitomer— Caged Warrior, Homeboyz, and Hip Hop High School
Come on, who wouldn’t want to hear from and engage with these fantastic authors over the course of five days? We will be linking to their webpages and acknowledging all of their accolades in the blog over the next few months.

Access the Workshop and Breakout Proposals
The details of the conference are getting closer. It looks like the conference fee will be around 400 dollars for the weeks events with some early bird discounts during the first quarter of 2016 (Please check the 2016 Zeiter Literature Conference link on the masthead of Dr. Bickmore’s YA Wednesday often for newly posted details.) The link to the proposal document is below and is also permanently available on the conference page of this website.

Workshops are defined at a week-long class. In a workshop, the director will meet with the same group of participants to work on a project under a specific topic for an hour each morning. Last year, for example, people worked on the issue of poverty in young adult literature (Crag Hill), pop culture in young adult literature (Angela Insenga), using young adult literature to promote writing (Bryan Ripley Crandall), and spirituality, religion, and mindfulness in young adult literature (Sharon Kane).

Breakouts are 45 minutes and the presenter will have the chance to engage and inform the participants around a topic from pedagogy in the college or K-12 classroom to discussing a research project or finding. Each presenter will have the opportunity to conduct the breakout twice on either Monday and Wednesday or Tuesday and Thursday. If you have a great idea, I want to hear about it. Please send them to my email at [email protected]. I hope to be hearing from you all soon.

This week's edition of Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday is a contribution from Gretchen Rumohr-Voskuil. Gretchen is another example of the kind of great people you meet if you attend conferences. A knew about Gretchen for a couple of years before we had some serious conversations about the teaching of YA literature. Gretchen was lucky enough to have my former colleague, Jackie Bach as  mentor through the Conference on English Education (CEE) mentoring program (I am sure Tom McCann would love to hear from you if you would like to serve as a mentor in this fantastic program.). As a result, I was slightly aware of what she as doing, now she is one of the people I make sure to connect with at these conferences. Talking with Gretchen during NCTE conferences and the summer CEE conference has added depth to my understanding of teaching YA literature. It is wonderful to have Gretchen as a guest contributor. She provides thoughtful advice as many of thinking about teaching YA literature next semester.

Gretchen Rumohr-Voskuil
In his keynote address at the 2015 CEE/IFTE conference, Ernest Morrell asked, “What are we doing to help teachers read differently than they were taught to read?”  When I heard this question, I reflected on my own high school reading experience which included plenty of dull, round-robin reading from the traditional canon, packets with comprehension questions, and a scarcity of reading for pleasure. It was no wonder that I read very little of what I was assigned.
 
My experiences align with those of the students in my YA methods course.  Upon entering, students confess that they’ve finished very few books since high school.  I observe that they lack the stamina required for reading longer texts, “skimming the surface” instead of reading in invested ways.  In their journals, few describe an active reading life that includes liking what they read.  They describe a love of reading that has long gone dormant.  They rarely reference YA literature as part of their reading life. These students--whether they love reading or not--will soon be (or already are) teachers of English.

We know that effective English teachers have strong reader and writer identities. How, then, can I encourage my methods students toward a legacy of loving books?  My solution is to use YA literature and a book workshop approach to initiate or re-kindle a love for reading--and thus make it more likely that my students adopt and retain similar, worthwhile methods in present and future English classrooms.
 
With the goal of developing a reader identity, our class reads and discusses the rationale and methods for book workshop approaches in Penny Kittle’s Book Love. We think through applications to future classrooms.  Then, with the goal of demonstrating that these workshop methods are not only possible, but valuable, in any classroom, we employ a teacher-as-reader model similar to the teacher-as-reader from the National Writing Project, using ideas from Kittle’s book. Staying true to Kittle’s methods, my students let their interests guide their book choices, yet most focus solely on YA literature as they read.

Using workshop includes daily routines such as the “book talk.”  At the beginning of each class, I share a YA book, giving a quick introduction--why I started reading it, what interested me, how many pages it is--and then reading aloud a short passage that will hook an interested reader.  YA titles that I regularly share include 13 Reasons Why (Asher), The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian (Alexie), Wintergirls (Anderson), Blankets (Thompson), Brown Girl Dreaming (Woodson), This One Summer (Tamaki) and Out of My Mind (Draper). Students use these talks to generate ideas for their own book lists, which they develop and maintain throughout the semester.
 
Another well-received routine is our use of Kittle’s “big idea books,” which are basic notebooks individually labeled with a theme such as courage, religion, family, commitment, discovery, etc.  Students anonymously freewrite about their chosen theme in relation to what they’ve read recently, adding to voices who have also written about that theme in the same notebook.  I save these notebooks from semester to semester as they serve as a testament to the breadth and depth of what my students have read. Big idea books also serve as written book talks for my students, who read their peers’ thematic reflections and often add book titles to their future reading lists.

In the midst of these methods, my students monitor their reading ability and track their page counts.  I serve as a partner in these efforts, checking their page tallies, conferencing with them regularly, and recommending YA books that I think will interest them.  Underlying this approach is a personal investment in workshop:  I do everything the students do, writing with them, reading YA literature with them, responding to texts with them. And together, we experience other workshop methods such as close-reading exercises, quotation analyses, literary letters, and speed-dating with books.

So far, this workshop approach has been successful.  Students have surpassed their semester reading goals, amazed at how much they can read when they are allowed to choose their texts.  Their “future reading” lists are long, and they contact me regularly to discuss book recommendations.  Walking across campus often means that I encounter a student who wants to discuss what s/he is currently reading.  My students’ love for reading has been planted or renewed, and their reader identities have been adopted and strengthened.  In fact, upon finishing this workshop, one student said, “I have definitely seen a shift in my attitude towards believing I have time or not to read. I am more likely to bring a book along places in my backpack, because I have remembered that reading for a few minutes before class is something I can do.” Another student commented, “I want to continue to be intentional about setting reading goals, creating book lists, making time to read, and increasing my reading stamina.” And while we already know that encouraging students to read YA literature doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll only read YA, I was reassured when one student shared, “Now that I consider myself a more voracious reader I intend to make [the] classics a part of my ‘to read’ list as well.”
 
Beyond developing a reader identity, students have indicated that they plan to adopt workshop-based mindsets and methods in their future classrooms.  One student commented on the role of book recommendations and the community of readers, saying, “...I knew that you were the type of reading teacher that I want to strive to emulate. I want to be able to be at a book store or thrift shop and pick up a book and instantly think of different students’ names who would love to read that particular book.” For another student, who is currently a fifth grade teacher, this workshop approach helped her to understand the value of choice in a reading life.  After adopting a workshop in her own classroom, she commented,  “When I say that it is time to take out our books for some free choice reading, I hear muffled cheers and see ear to ear smiles….now I have students telling me about their books and dying to get their hands on the books I am reading. I can’t finish books fast enough for them and they can’t wait to shove to the books they are reading into my hands.”
 
I know that I need to do a longer term qualitative study to lend more credibility to this workshop method.  I also know that there are implications for this kind of work in methods courses, like helping preservice and practicing teachers build their libraries (as opposed to solely relying on a few classroom sets) and advocate for themselves when facing administrators and colleagues who insist on less meaningful methods.  Aside from future directions, though, I think about how I used to teach YA methods.  In the past, I chose all of the texts for my YA methods course and we would read and respond to them together.  In many ways, I was doing what Morrell cautioned against, teaching as I had been taught. While I still use some whole-class novels, I now see the value in a workshop model. Having experienced the ways my students’ reading identities, choices and future methods have been impacted, the past is behind me.  There is no turning back.

This last Monday, Dec. 7, 2015, I spent the day at the UNLV College of Education Summit on Nevada Education. It was interesting, innovative, and, at times, exciting. Like every conference, some speeches are better than others. Some confirm what you already think, some challenge you to think anew about issues that you thought were fixed in your mind, and others are frustrating. I especially appreciated the keynote speeches of Governor Brian Sandoval, Jaime Casap, and Dale Erquiaga. They all suggested that, in our democracy, Americans rise up in unity to solve problems. Gov. Sandolval reminded us that we were holding this event on the anniversary of the infamy of Pearl Harbor. While the event was horrible and traumatic, the heroism that began there revealed the patriotism of America’s greatest generation. Casap, Google’s Education Evangelist, pointed to the role of collaboration and innovation in the future of both business and educational pursuits. At the center of this educational vision, Casap still sees the teacher at the center. Erquiaga cautioned that instead of reacting to events like the self-centered seagulls in Finding Nemo, by shouting “Mine, Mine, Mine” at every opportunity, we should approach problems collaboratively with a view of solutions that attempt to meet the needs of the community, of the whole community, of the disadvantaged and those with means. In my view, it is public education that can produce an educated populace capable of participating and contributing to the complicated, but promising activities of our democracy. Thomas Jefferson advised: Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

In my opinion, for too much of the journey, we have been going down the wrong road under No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. The new legislation offers some changes, but nothing that educators would recognize as a complete shift to collaborative activities (as suggested by the conversations of the summit), and project driven learning that might help us develop a cross-curricular focus that would allow educators to return to the frequently neglected subject areas of science and social studies. Instead, while states may gain some autonomy, there seems to be money for further privatization of teacher education. There are other troubling uses of public money that might involve profiteering on the backs of well-meaning teachers, their students, and their unsuspecting parents (but that is a blog for another time-investigate on your own and see what you find). I might suggest that we all follow Valerie Strauss of The Washington Post through her blog, Answer Sheet. On the same day of the summit she posted a blog that points to areas of concern in the new legislation. 

What does this have to do with Young Adult literature or children’s literature? Actually, quite a bit. There was very little discussion about reading. Oh, there was some talk about the new Read by Grade Three legislation. I keep wondering: Will classroom libraries be funded? My word, will school libraries be funded? What books will be provided? Will students see only windows in the books they read or will there be mirrors as well? How diverse will the books be? Will there be books that allow students to see possibilities? To envision hope? And to create? Will they be provided time to read and then to discuss the ideas they encounter? The list of questions goes on, but we do know some things. Much of schooling under routinized, scripted instruction is boring students to death and they don’t seem to find much joy or rejuvenation in such settings. No wonder students often seem lazy and disengaged.

Amidst all of the chatter about collaboration, I kept thinking about one of the collaborative YA novels that I recently read--All American Boys. I think about this book frequently. Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely have provided a powerful and intriguing investigation into racism and police brutality. This beautifully written and co-authored novel demonstrates the power of collaboration. I imagine that some of the conversations between Brendan and Jason were difficult. Perhaps they had fits and starts. Perhaps they had to reshape their ideas and opinions the same way we ask our students to reconsider their ideas and apparently fixed opinions. I recommend that when you finish All American Boys; read the acknowledgment section, it hints at their work, their research, and the people that helped them produce this exceptional text.  Their model of collaboration might suggest avenues of learning and exploration in our classrooms and within our society. 

Clearly, Jason and Brendan are not the only ones in the community of YA writers who have produced a collaborative novel. We can look to many others, Will Grayson, Will Grayson by David Levithan and John Green; Upside Down Magic by Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle, and Emily Jenkins; Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan; These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner; The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler; and books by James Patterson with Chris Tebbetts and Chris Grabenstein. This list doesn't even begin to include edited collections of short stories and other projects that foster collaboration. I am sure that many of you can add to the list. Let’s begin to imagine more ways to use YA literature to inspire collaborative reading, writing, discussions, and investigative projects that explore the problems and solutions, the hopes and defeats, and the aspirations and challenges that engage the adolescents in our classrooms.
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Until next week. 

One of the engaging aspect of working at a university  is the chance to think deeply about a specific topic. By this I mean not just thinking about math or science because that is your field, but something specific in that area. For example, not just physics, but a specific area in quantum physics. Not just science, but something specific about soil conservation in the eroding Mississippi delta. English Education is a specific field of study within English; within that concentration I have colleagues who consider the finer points of writing instruction, working with struggling readers, and, of course, some of us focus on various aspects of young adult literature. It is hard for us to read everything and within the specialty of YA there are scholars you are thinking deeply about specific genres, themes, or methods of instruction. One of the scholars in the field of young adult literature who is an example of this deep thought is Patricia Dunn. For the past year, Patricia has forced me to leave my own narrow focus and take the time to benefit from her deep thinking about YA literature and disability.  Patricia, a professor at Stony Brook University, is this week’s guest contributor at Dr. Bickmore’s YA Wednesday.

   In our culture, there's a long-standing tradition against "didactic" novels. We read for pleasure, for information, for escape, not for a "lesson." But books convey unspoken lessons nonetheless, sometimes harmful ones. And when books foreground characters with disabilities, beware of old-fashioned depictions of these characters as pitiable, helpless, unhappy, defined by their disability, super-heroic, villainous, or sacrificial.
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            Take, for example, the character of Doodle in the widely anthologized short story, "The Scarlet Ibis," published in 1960 by James Hurst. **Spoiler ahead—watch out!** "The Scarlet Ibis" is not YA except in the broadest definition: that it centers on life-changing events in childhood. I taught this story in high school many years ago (through my tears at the end), and my former and current students still teach it today, so it's important to examine this English Language Arts (ELA) staple and its treatment of disability.

Unspoken, Negative Messages about Disability?
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            In this retrospective story, the non-disabled, narrating protagonist (now an adult) finds moral redemption through the death of the disabled character, his younger brother, Doodle.  Scholars David T. Mitchell and Sharon L Snyder call this use of disability in plots "narrative prosthesis," in which disability is "a stock feature of characterization" and "an opportunistic metaphorical device" (47). Most of the "discussion questions" available online about this story focus on the metaphor of the scarlet ibis and its similarity to Doodle. But what message does it send to readers when the character with the disability ends up dead at the end? 

​          Another stereotype to watch out for is what I call the "Rudolf-the-Red-Nosed-Reindeer" character: the unusual or disabled character whom the other characters ignore or ridicule—that is, until this character somehow saves the day at the end, usually because of the thing that is considered unusual (the glowing nose). The negative message here, as Jay Dolmage points out, is that it's okay to have a disability, but only so long as you have a "compensatory ability." Be sure you save the world somehow because of it, or you won't be accepted (39-40).

Where to Look for More Contemporary YA Novels on Disability
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            Since books featuring disability are still relatively rare, it's better to find texts that feature realistic characters with agency, who get to tell their own stories, who are "normal" people living full lives. Happily, there are a number of fairly recent disability-themed YA novels, many of which show fully-developed, realistic protagonists with agency and voice. Mark Letcher, in his English Journal Off the Shelves column, which ran from 2008 – 2013, has written about a number of them: The London Eye Mystery, Marcelo in the Real World, Anything But Typical, and more. Several articles in The ALAN Review also discuss YA lit and disability, most notably Menchetti, Plattos, and Carroll's 2011 piece on "The Impact of Fiction on Perceptions of Disability," as well as Jeffrey Kaplan's article on learning disabilities and YA lit. And in  Children's Literature in Education, Jen Scott Curwood also analyzes disability in young adult literature. An invaluable new resource is disabilityinKidlit.com, which publishes reviews of YA lit—with reviews always written by writers who share the disability of the protagonist or prominent character in the book. Another great place to find disability-themed texts is Schneider Family Book award site, which searches out high-quality YA and children's books that have realistic characters with disability. 

Read These Two YA Novels
            Two YA novels that stand out for their insightful perspective and stance are Peeling the Onion, by Wendy Orr, and Accidents of Nature, by Harriet McBryde Johnson, both of which I analyze in depth in my new book, Disabling Characters: Representations of Disability in Young Adult Literature. Each of these texts is narrated by a character with a disability, and each was written by an author who had an impairment similar to that of her protagonist. What is profoundly refreshing about both of these highly literary and sophisticated novels is that they take a hard look at the society in which the protagonists find themselves, and they examine not the main character's struggle to "overcome" her disability, but society's unreasonable expectation that she do so. I admit that it took a second read for me to "get" what Accidents of Nature was doing, so steeped am I in conventional narratives about what people with disabilities are expected by our society to do. Read them both.