Like in real life, autism spectrum disorder alone is never the whole story, and Baskin does a good job balancing Jason’s autism with his writing life, family, school, and budding friendship. She’s succeeded in creating an authentic autistic character who is anything but stereotypical.
A snarky New York Times column referred to CFS as “yuppie flu,” and oh, it was hilarious. Those silly rich people imagining themselves sick!
Although the book was fun and interesting in places, the disability aspect was very much a freak-show presentation of disability and the disabled experience.
After the first two books in Jackie Morse Kessler’s Riders of the Apocalypse series—Hunger, about a girl with anorexia, and Rage, about a girl with depression—were so positively reviewed on the blog, we were incredibly excited to invite the author over for a joint interview.
Charlie Cooper is your average, down-to-earth girl—who happens to be disabled. But occasionally, this normalcy backfires.
Overall, I found the portrayal of pediatric cancer iffy—better than some, worse than others. Rather than unthinking stereotypes, though, these shortcomings felt like a result of a lack of personal experience or oversights in research.
I Was Here is full of wasted potential; Meg is as much of a prop to the story as Mr. Body is to Clue.
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.
Wonderstruck is wonderful. It is, to date, the most creative and ambitious novel about the d/Deaf experience in America I’ve ever come across.
When Deenie was first published, it may well have been a positive representation of the experience of a child with scoliosis, but it hasn’t held up well.