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Max spends his day dreaming about competing in world class sporting events, and when he and his classmates--some of whom are disabled--prevail in a soccer match, he imagines they have won the World Cup.

This project is an interdisciplinary endeavor to connect research in the teaching of English with Critical Disability Studies, an intersection that is crucial to disrupting ableism and creating more liberatory schooling and societal contexts that embrace broader notions of human differences. Invoking critical content analysis of five young adult novels that depict characters with Tourette syndrome (TS), we asked, how are various models for understanding “disability” invoked in YA fiction that depicts Tourette syndrome? How do these various models function to reinforce, complicate, or reconstruct in a more progressive way notions about human difference in YA fiction that depicts Tourette syndrome? We focused on one of the many pervasive tropes found within all five novels using the psychodynamic construct of splitting. In particular, we call attention to depictions of TS as embodying an animal—most often a dog—that splits off into the bad/dangerous side, usually subsumed within a character’s “normal self.” This trope can be seen as part of broader, historical discourses that have dehumanized disabled people, constructing them as “other” and subsequently rationalizing exclusionary practices. We advocate for and discuss ways for scholars and educators to continue integrating disability from the margins to the center in literacy research.

\"Randi wants to be an actress and is excited about practicing her craft in drama class. So she is devastated to learn the program has been cut. When her friends put together a successful proposal to have drama class taught as an extracurricular activity, Randi is thrilled. Until the reality sinks in. Extracurriculars are scheduled after school, and after school Randi is expected to take care of her special-needs brother. Can Randi find a way to make it all work out?\" -- Publisher's description.

01 02 Postcolonial Fiction and Disability explores the politics and aesthetics of disability in postcolonial literature. The first book to make sustained connections between postcolonial writing and disability studies, it focuses on the figure of the exceptional child in well-known novels by Grace, Dangarembga, Sidhwa, Rushdie, and Okri. While the fictional lives of disabled child characters are frequently intertwined with postcolonial histories, providing potent metaphors for national 'damage' and vulnerability, Barker argues that postcolonial writers are equally concerned with the complexity of disability as lived experience. The study focuses on constructions of normalcy, the politics of medicine and healthcare, and questions of citizenship and belonging in order to demonstrate how progressive health and disability politics often emerge organically from writers' postcolonial concerns. In reframing disability as a mode of exceptionality, the book assesses the cultural and political insights that derive from portrayals of disability, showing how postcolonial writing can contribute conceptually towards building more inclusive futures for disabled people worldwide. 08 02 'Clare Barker's Exceptional Children is a very timely and distinctive book, which makes a strong ethical argument for a critical negotiation of postcolonial studies and disability studies through some illuminating readings of the figure of the child in postcolonial fiction.' - Stephen Morton, Senior Lecturer in English, University of Southampton. 02 02 This book is the first study of disability in postcolonial fiction. Focusing on canonical novels, it explores the metaphorical functions and material presence of disabled child characters. Barker argues that progressive disability politics emerge from postcolonial concerns, and establishes dialogues between postcolonialism and disability studies. 19 02 First book to focus on postcolonial literature and representations of disability - surprisingly common feature of this kind of literature Brings together critical debates in the fields of postcolonial studies and disability studies Wide-ranging geographical focus of the book – includes discussion of writers from New Zealand, Pakistan, India, Zimbabwe and Nigeria Discusses canonical figures in postcolonial fiction (eg, Rushdie, Okri) 04 02 Acknowledgements Introduction 'Decrepit, Deranged, Deformed': Indigeneity and Cultural Health in Potiki Hunger, Normalcy, and Postcolonial Disorder in Nervous Conditions and The Book of Not Cracking India and Partition: Dismembering the National Body The Nation as Freak Show: Monstrosity and Biopolitics in Midnight's Children 'Redreaming the World': Ontological Difference and Abiku Perception in The Famished Road Conclusion: Growing Up Bibliography Index 13 02 CLARE BARKER Lecturer in English at the University of Birmingham, UK. 31 02 This book explores the representation of disabled children in postcolonial fiction, establishing interdisciplinary engagements between postcolonial studies and disability studies

Many rights struggles have promoted education and learning as proof of citizenship and capacity, and disability rights movements are no exception. Blanche Van Leuven Browne, one early twentieth-century polio survivor, reimagined the possibilities of education for “crippled children” by approaching schooling as not only preparation for vocational work but as a sign of disabled children's social worthiness. This article explores the role of education in Browne's life and work, from her childhood in the 1880s to the Detroit hospital-school for physically disabled children she operated from 1907 to 1918. Browne's educational approach emphasized writing and citizenship to (re)define the identity of the “crippled child,” envisioning each as an intelligent future citizen. This approach contrasted with predominant contemporary medical, philanthropic, and educational approaches, which emphasized medical care and vocational training for children with orthopedic disabilities. It also distanced physically disabled children from intellectually disabled children, who were key cultural targets of eugenic fears.

One-legged Joe is 'amazing'. He knows this because wherever he goes people always tell him he's amazing. Amazing for sliding down the slide, for kicking a ball - even walking to get an ice cream, or even just eating an ice cream. Of course, being Amazing Joe is better than being Poor Joe.

Children's literature or young adult literature is often seen as an elementary and casual genre, but people overlook the powerful tools it acquires in modelling attitudes and shaping children's minds. Various studies point out that society's behaviours and attitudes towards disability and people with disability are primarily based on popular culture and not personal encounters or experiences. Disability has always been an inseparable part of children's movies and stories from the beginning of times, only the magnitude to which it has been revealed has changed. This literature is seen as the most important as it introduces the world to young minds, and hence the impression it creates in children's minds would not easily be eliminated. It is also noted that young children accept differences and generate positive, acceptive attitudes during their early ages as they are less resistant and have little foreknowledge. This paper examines the disability representations in children's literature and traces the changes it has undergone as a genre from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first century. Two children's books are selected for this study, “Heidi” by Johanna Spyri and “Rules” by Cynthia Lord. The differences in the portrayal of disability and disabled characters in these novels are studied through content analysis, character study, comparison and by analyzing the linguistic symbols. This paper also ventures to decipher the norms and societal values the stereotypes were based on, and it also attempts to account for any changes.

\"Zulay is a blind girl who longs to be able to run in the race on field and track day at her school\"-- Provided by publisher.

This essay explores the complex entanglement of new reproductive technologies, genetics, health economics, rights-based discourses and ethical considerations of the value of human life with particular reference to representations of Down’s syndrome and the identification of trisomy 21. Prompted by the debates that have occurred in the wake of the adoption of non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT), the essay considers the representation of Down’s syndrome and prenatal testing in bioethical discourse, feminist writings on reproductive autonomy and disability studies and in a work of popular fiction, Yrsa Sigurdardóttir’s Someone To Look Over Me (2013), a novel set in Iceland during the post-2008 financial crisis. It argues that the conjunction of neo-utilitarian and neoliberal and biomedical models produce a hostile environment in which the concrete particularities of disabled people’s lives and experiences are placed under erasure for a ‘genetic fiction’ that imagines the life of the ‘not yet born’ infant with Down’s syndrome as depleted, diminished and burdensome. With close reference to the depiction of Down’s syndrome and learning disability in the novel, my reading explores the ways in which the generic conventions of crime fiction intersect with ideas about economics, politics and learning disability, to mediate an exploration of human value and social justice that troubles dominant deficit-led constructions of disability.