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Diversity in children’s literature is often represented as an either/or, without intersectionality; characters can either be autistic or gay, for example, or a wheelchair user or Black, but rarely both. Why is that?

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.

You Look Different in Real Life is a contemporary YA novel in which the broken friendship between the protagonist and her autistic best friend plays a central role–a thoughtfully handled plot thread that we were eager to talk to author Jennifer Castle about.

Clichés, ableist language … what kinds of words, phrases, or situations used in book or character descriptions send up warning flags for our contributors?

April Henry’s main character in Girl, Stolen is a well-researched, well-written example of blindness, and we were thrilled to discuss the book with her.

s.e. smith’s rave review of Wild Awake was one of the very first posts on this blog. We invited s.e. and author Hilary T. Smith to discuss books, mental illness, and everything in between.

We’ve been wanting to shake hands with the good folks of the Schneider Family Book Award — an ALA award which highlights depictions of disability in children’s literature — for a while, and July 2014 marked the perfect time: while we celebrated our first anniversary, the Schneider celebrated its tenth!

If our contributors could tell an author writing a character with their disability one thing – besides “do your research” – what would it be?

The toughest chapter to write in El Deafo, by far, was the chapter in which I reject sign language.

Shaunta Grimes’s Viral Nation is the rare YA dystopian novel with an autistic protagonist; we were keen to sit down with the author to discuss the book, its sequel Rebel Nation, and its protagonist Clover Donovan.

Is any representation better than no representation? That argument frequently comes up in response to criticism, but is it valid?

A one-armed astronaut superhero is the lead in Dangerous, the unusual new novel by NYT bestselling and Newbery Honor-winning author Shannon Hale, who sat down with us for a great interview.

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been a whole year since Disability in Kidlit was first launched. We’re so excited for this milestone and so grateful for all of your support.

What’s so wrong with the Beautiful Tragedy trope? Why is it wrong to emphasize the supposed irony of a person with beautiful eyes who can’t see or a good-looking person “confined to a wheelchair” (another horrible, tragedy evoking phrase) or the like?

The first time I’ve really seen someone in a book who is just like me, and she turns out to be a superhero.

Charlie Cooper is your average, down-to-earth girl—who happens to be disabled. But occasionally, this normalcy backfires.

For disabled characters, being cured is a common trope. What’s more, in most of these narratives, the characters are cured because they’re better than they were at the start of the book: kinder, gentler, braver. And finally, finally, they’re normal and whole.

This is a reminder of tomorrow’s Twitter chat.

The description for this book uses the phrase “brilliant but autistic” to describe its main character, and that’s where our conflicted feelings about Viral Nation start.

Disability in Kidlit will be undergoing some changes; a different posting schedule, update on submissions, and social media news.

I can feel their eyes on me. They’re all staring, judging.

Disability in Kidlit will be taking a brief two-week hiatus beginning today, but we’ll be back on January 10, 2014 with more excellent posts.

When we see institutions in YA, we usually see them in one of two contexts: a “sane” person wrongly incarcerated in one, or a spooky (often old, sometimes abandoned but haunted by ghosts) asylum filled with “crazy people.”

What concerns me is that disabled characters are often integrated in the form of tokenism, meaning one token character that could be considered “different” is included in the plot. And even then, such characters are frequently depicted in stereotypical ways, despite being created by authors who may have the best of intentions.