Recommended Reading List
A brief list of recommendations our contributors put together.
A brief list of recommendations our contributors put together.
Bad depictions in popular culture foster the narrative of the lazy narcoleptic: They’re lazy. They’re late/unproductive/lethargic employees. They’re uncaring lovers or absent friends. And so on and so on.
An emotionally wrenching book, but a worthy one, and one that treats its autistic protagonist with every bit of the realism and respect that she deserves.
This is a book about a girl with an autistic brother. The autistic brother is crucial to the plot, but her actual brother is really more of a plot device than anything else.
Everything, Everything starts out as a respectful, sensitive narrative with incredibly likable characters, but ends on a shockingly disappointing note in terms of disability representation.
Hunt captures the inner confusion when you aren’t getting something everyone else grasps easily that is a pre-diagnosed dyslexic’s life. Ally’s situation conjured up so many memories at first that it was hard for me to read, but the reward was great.
Since our founding exactly three years ago, we’ve built up an impressive bank of reviewed titles. Now, we’re making the search for good representation even easier.
People like Early do exist, and it’s great to see historical fiction that includes a disabled character, but Early gets a little too close to the trope of the magical or extra-special autistic for my comfort.
Pete’s autism is portrayed over and over again as being non-stop pain and suffering. That got incredibly hard to read; do people really think this is what autism is like?
Julian Birch has a “withered” leg from a childhood bout of polio, and Mitchell’s depiction of him is one of the most believable, relatable portrayals of disability I’ve come across.