Blog

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

We sat down with NYT bestselling author Leigh Bardugo to talk about her most recent series, its depiction of disability, and more!

Our reviewers interview author and Disability in Kidlit editor Corinne Duyvis about disability tropes, survival in the apocalypse, and writerly research.

We invite Courtney Summers to the blog to discuss researching and writing mental illness, disability in her zombie novel, and the lack of diversity in apocalyptic narratives.

Heidi Heilig and S. Jae-Jones sit down to talk about the book’s portrayal of bipolar disorder, writing mental illness, and writing with a mental illness.

Audiobooks are an essential part of making reading as accessible as possible, so we’re excited to sit down with marketing manager Jennifer Rubins and head of production Dan Zitt and talk about the behind-the-scenes process of audiobooks.

Eric Lindstrom wrote an excellent portrayal of a blind teenage girl, so we’re happy to invite him to the site to discuss his approach, blindness tropes, and more.

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.

A Q&A with author Corey Ann Haydu about the origins of OCD Love Story and the many and varied ways anxiety can manifest.

After our rave review of Cindy Rodriguez’s debut When Reason Breaks — about two very different girls who are both dealing with depression — we were excited to invite both reviewer and author to the website this week to discuss the book further.

We’re happy to have a chance to chat with Marieke Nijkamp — WNDB VP of finance, autistic author, and previous Disability in Kidlit contributor — about her work and autism in literature.

Rogue is one of the rare novels about an autistic character written by an autistic author, and the book raises many intriguing questions to discuss.

Author Tara Kelly sits down with her newest teen fan to discuss Harmonic Feedback, a young adult novel about a music-loving girl with autism, ADD, and anxiety disorder.

As The Real Boy was one of our favorite reads of the year, we couldn’t wait to invite author Anne Ursu over to discuss this wonderful, magical middle grade novel about an autistic boy.

A princess with a clubfoot. Who can resist? We can’t, and apparently the Schneider Family Book Award jury couldn’t, either. Merrie Haskell’s 2014 win of the award was just one of the reasons we wanted to discuss her MG fantasy novel Handbook for Dragon Slayers with her.

Don’t Touch is an insightful look into the life of a girl with OCD, and we were delighted to interview author Rachel M. Wilson about this wonderful debut.

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.

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!

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.

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.