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Despite some reservations, our reviewer would recommend this contemporary novel about young Bat – and the reviewer’s ten-year-old goddaughter agrees.

What is it like to grow up with dyscalculia? And how might a character experience it?

There are many different ways an author can express a sign language on the page; let’s take a closer look.

The portrayal of epilepsy in this book was frustrating and disrespectful. People with epilepsy deserve better than this.

Stoner & Spaz is funny and often unafraid of ambivalence, and I feel similarly ambivalent: liking a lot of what I got, yet wanting more of the stuff between the lines of what Ben says and does.

Queens of Geek is an authentic and refreshing portrayal of an autistic and anxious girl.

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!

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.

Princess Tilda does not demonstrate the need to “overcome” her clubfoot, that word many of us in the disability community have come to loathe. To me, Tilda represents a new kind of heroine, who is strong and doesn’t need saving, but also acknowledges and shows her vulnerability and insecurities.

All the way through the book, I felt that something was slightly off with the portrayal of Tessie’s selective mutism, but in a way that made it hard to pin down.

“How did you manage to capture that voice?” beta readers would ask. “How did you know to describe those particular feelings?” I was starting to have a few self-revelations about that.

It’s clear that many people, including pre-diagnosis me, don’t know much about hypermobility; this only makes the need for representation more necessary.

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.

I wanted to write about a real girl with real emotions struggling in a world that too often is unforgiving to those who don’t fit the right mold.

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.

The characterization and descriptions of Grace do disabled readers a disservice in more ways than one.

I appreciated the honesty and authenticity with which the emotional aspects of serious illness were written; the actual details of day-to-day life with cystic fibrosis, however, were a mixed bag.

Skim does a good job of showing misguided attempts to help those with depression, and lets the reader see the absurdity for themselves.

I wish this book, featuring a girl newly diagnosed with Crohn’s, had existed when I was a teenager — my recurring thought throughout was, “Oh my god, someone wrote a book for me!”

While some elements of the representation were handled decently, I ultimately wasn’t a fan.

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.

Venkatraman creates a fully-formed character, and nails both the details and the emotion of having a limb amputated and adjusting to life afterwards.

Kayla Whaley talks with thirteen-year-old activist and author Melissa Shang about her recent middle grade debut.