Review: You’re Welcome, Universe by Whitney Gardner
Julia is a Deaf teen girl who is creative, artistic, and passionate. And she is an authentic portrayal of deafness.
Julia is a Deaf teen girl who is creative, artistic, and passionate. And she is an authentic portrayal of deafness.
You’re Welcome, Universe author Whitney Gardner sits down with Andrea Shettle and site editor Natasha Razi to discuss her debut novel!
It’s September, which means we’re back! While the August break was lovely (and so very refreshing), we could not be more…
We take a moment to look back at our favorite posts and reads of the year, and to look ahead to the substantial changes 2017 will bring at Disability in Kidlit.
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.
Despite reservations about the ending, I would recommend The Rest of Us Just Live Here; it’s a welcome addition to YA novels involving OCD and anxiety.
Hanna is a character with bipolar disorder; she’s not “bipolar disorder, the walking human diagnosis.” I think people who share the disease will find something soothing in seeing someone who both manages and mismanages her illness realistically.
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?
We have so few stories—especially lighthearted ones—with wheelchair-using characters that I’d hoped I’d be able to recommend I Funny, but it’s a dangerous narrative wrapped up and presented as “good messages.”
I was intrigued by the virtual-reality premise, but this book is a veritable hotbed of misogyny and a case study in how not to write a wheelchair-using character.