NOTE: I have researched and selected three young adult novels for my final project that include stories of people with disabilities. All of the texts that I have chosen pass the standards for quality literature that represents diversity and multiculturalism; specifically disability. I hope you find this set of texts to be a useful resource for selecting literature about underrepresented disabilities.
Young Adult Literature that Represents Disabilities
I chose to critically review three young adult novels that embody characters with underrepresented disabilities. Each novel contains a character with a different disability. I specifically decided to review and compile three texts representing three different disabilities to get a stronger insight into this diverse culture of literature. Literature that represents people with disabilities is not as prominent as texts that represent other categories of multicultural literature. However, texts representing persons with disabilities are slowly growing in availability. When choosing texts that represent disabilities, it is important to consider whether the text uses accurate language that is sensitive and up-to-date. Often, books that represent disability focus on the disability more than character and plot development. In evaluating this specific type of multicultural literature, it is best to choose “books with characters whose disabilities may be integral or peripheral to the plot, but which are not stories about disabilities.” (Tal). If the only focus of the book is to tell information about a specific disability, the disability typically becomes the main trait of the character and can lead to stereotyping. In choosing the texts, I made sure to select novels written by authors who have direct experience with the represented disability. I also made sure to choose informative pieces of literature that entail character development and plot lines that readers can relate to. The disabilities are very present in the texts, but they do not dominate the story that is being told. The three texts that I have reviewed below are about underrepresented disabilities: stuttering, autism and synesthesia. Altogether, the books are powerful works of young adult fictional literature that represent the diverse culture of people with disabilities in a respectful and sensitive manner.
A Mango-Shaped Space, By Wendy Mass
Wendy Mass’ novel A Mango-Shaped Space tells the story of a thirteen-year-old girl named Mia who is struggling in school with her math class and her foreign language class. The novel is told through Mia’s perspective, and she describes in detail how she sees everything around her in colors and shapes. After freshly beginning the 8th grade, Mia discovers she is failing out of her math class. She cannot understand why she experiences difficulties with numbers, or why learning a foreign language is incredibly difficult for her. She struggles to tell her parents that there are colors getting in the way of the numbers she sees. After being taken to a series of doctors, it is discovered that Mia has a neurological rarity that heightens all of her senses called Synesthesia. In the novel, Mia learns to embrace her gift, and she is introduced to other people who share the same disability. Although her disability is very prevalent in the story, it does not take away from her universal situations that occur as an adolescent. She deals with the death of her grandfather and cat, struggles with friendship, becomes interested in a fellow classmate, describes her relationship with her family members, and paints regularly. This is a quality piece of literature because one learns about the disability through the main character without it dominating the development of the character.
Tending to Grace, By Kimberly Newton Fusco
Tending to Grace is a novel that explores the internal struggle of a fourteen-year-old girl named Cornelia who has a speech impediment. Cornelia stutters when she speaks. Due to her stuttering, she refuses to speak and instead she spends most of her time reading literature. Cornelia’s mother runs off with her new boyfriend to start a life in Las Vegas, leaving Cornelia with her aunt Agatha in a small rural town. Agatha is entirely eccentric and very lonely. At first Cornelia and Agatha do not get along, but after some time they discover that they can help each other grow and learn. Cornelia is rejected by nearly everyone she encounters because she stutters terribly and people do not understand what is wrong with her. The only two people in the town that accept and befriend Cornelia are her aunt Agatha and her new friend Bo. However, neither of them knows how to read, and this is something that Cornelia does best. She begins to teach them how to read, and it forces her to speak. All the while, Cornelia longs for her mother to come and tell her she loves her and wants to be a family again. This novel presents the speech impediment of stuttering in a sympathetic manner. The constant rejection from strangers and cruel remarks that are said to her sometimes dominate the emotion of the text. Although there is adequate character development in the plot, the constant rejection Cornelia feels from society devastates her and this devastation tends to become one of her main character traits. The reactions she receives from people she encounters are accurate and likely responses a stutterer might receive from someone who does not understand the disability. Cornelia’s story is absolutely a story that needs to be told, but sometimes it seems that the struggle she experiences with stuttering is more important to the text than telling a quality or easily relatable story. This being said, the sub-plots (about Cornelia’s relationship with her mother, her love of reading, building a quality relationship with Agatha, and teaching Agatha and Bo to read) never seem fully developed in the text. However, Tending to Grace is a quality piece of literature that teaches about the emotional struggle one may experience with a speech impediment. The author of Tending to Grace was written by an insider, Kimberly Newton Fusco, who was a stutterer herself. Many of her own experiences were woven into her novel, including sounds that were difficult for her to make, and the internal pain she felt from those that were uninformed about her disability. The realistic depiction of this disability, and the fact that readers can relate to some of Cornelia’s problems, makes this text work as a diverse piece of multicultural literature.
Rules, By Cynthia Lord
Rules is a story told through the voice of a twelve year-old girl named Catherine. Her younger brother, David, is a child with autism. Catherine struggles with the fact that she and her family spend a wealth of their energy in tending to her brother’s disability. She makes a continuing list of rules for her brother to follow, in an attempt to help him learn what is right and what is wrong. In the story, Catherine meets a boy named Jason who communicates in a different way and requires the use of a wheelchair. This is a powerful story about an adolescent girl who is trying to figure out who she is while longing for a normal life for both her self and David. This is a quality piece of literature that represents autism in a respectable manner. Rules is written by an insider named Cynthia Lord. The author based the character David off of her autistic son, including some real instances in the plot of the text. Through the voice of Catherine, Lord attempts to tell a story that represents a similar family dynamic that she experiences with her family. There are many aspects of Catherine’s story that adolescent readers can relate to, while being exposed to the disability of autism.
Critical Review
The depiction of stuttering in contemporary juvenile fiction: Implications for clinical practice.
By: Logan, Kenneth J., Mullins, Melody Saunders, Jones, Kelly M.
This article was written by three people who chose to critically review pieces of juvenile fiction literature that features characters who stutter. There were many requirements the literature needed to exhibit in order to be recommended as a quality text that can be used instructionally, and as a text that presents stutterers in a realistic, sensitive manner. Among these qualities included:
- The book featured at least one child or adolescent character that stuttered.
- descriptions of the character’s communication impairment were consistent with known characteristics of stuttering
- stuttering-related issues were mentioned during significant portions of the story and were integral to the character’s actions or the book’s plot
The article featured and reviewed 29 books that met or exceeded the criteria. Among these books was Kimberly Newton Fusco’s novel, Tending to Grace. According to the article, Tending to Grace accurately told the character’s communication impairment. Cornelia’s stuttering was consistent in its representation, and a powerful addition to the emotion of the text. The book is also praised for properly representing encounters a person who stutters may have with people who are unaware of their speech impediment. Conclusively, the researchers agree that Tending to Grace is an accurately written, quality piece of literature that depicts a character that stutters in a respectable manner. It is also recommended as a novel that can be taught instructionally due to its accurate depiction of the speech impediment, as well as the development of the character. This article gave an in-depth description of important critical elements to look for when reviewing literature that contains a character that stutters. It also provides many statistics about people that stutter, emotional effects of the disability, and common stereotypes to look for in literature that does not properly represent the disability. The article ends with an annotated guide to contemporary juvenile literature that represents accurate depictions and powerful stories about characters that stutter.
Works Cited:
Fusco, Kimberly Newton. Tending to Grace. Random House, New York. 2004
Logan, Kenneth J., Mullins, Melody Saunders, Jones, Kelly M. The depiction of stuttering in contemporary juvenile fiction: Implications for clinical practice. [online] Psychology in the Schools, Vol. 45 (7), Pages 609-626. 2008. Wiley Periodicals, Inc., A Wiley Company. Retrieved: May 1, 2009. URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pits.20313.
Lord, Cynthia. Rules. Scholastic Press, New York. 2006
Mass, Wendy. A Mango Shaped Space. Little, Brown, and Company, New York. 2005
Tal, E. (2001). “Swimming the mainstream: A discussion of criteria for evaluating children’s literature about disabilities.” Bookbird, 39 (1), 30-32
