3 Must Read Disability Books for National Disability Awareness Month in 2023
March is National Disability Awareness Month! These best-selling, award-winning books celebrate disability, Deaf culture, neurodiversity, and autism acceptance.
1) El Deafo by Cece Bell
#1 New York Times Bestseller
Now an Apple+ Animated TV Series
What does it take for a student with hearing loss and a hearing aid to become a superhero?
Starting at a new school is scary, especially with a giant hearing aid strapped to your chest! At her old school, everyone in Cece’s class was deaf. Here, she’s different. She’s sure the kids are staring at the Phonic Ear, the powerful aid that will help her hear her teacher. Too bad it also seems certain to repel potential friends.
Then Cece makes a startling discovery. With the Phonic Ear she can hear her teacher not just in the classroom but anywhere her teacher is in the school — in the hallway . . . in the teacher’s lounge . . . in the bathroom! This is power. Maybe even superpower! Cece is on her way to becoming El Deafo, Listener for All.
But the funny thing about being a superhero is that it’s just another way of feeling different . . . and lonely. Can Cece channel her powers into finding the thing she wants most, a true friend?
El Deafo is a book that will entertain children, give hearing-impaired children a hero of their own, and challenge others to consider an experience unlike their own. Like other great works for children, it provides the opportunity for young readers to consider how they would act or react in a similar situation, helping to build empathy and understanding through the power of story.
2) Fearlessly Different by Mickey Rowe
Mickey Rowe went from special education to Broadway’s biggest stage as an autistic and legally blind person. This book mixes powerful storytelling following a coming-of-age journey with narrative journalism about autism and disability. And the reviews speak for themselves.
“An immensely inspiring debut . . . powerfully renders what it’s like to live life to the fullest.”
- Publishers Weekly Starred Review
“Mickey Rowe’s Fearlessly Different is fascinating, educating, elucidating, and sometimes enraging. It is inspirational and eye-opening. It is insightful and, hopefully, inciting — a call for action, for necessary and overdue change, for a vital, urgent reframing and rethinking of disability. But mostly, Fearlessly Different is a very good story — several of them, in fact — of resilience and courage and the strength and power of being two things: different and who you are.”
- New York Times bestselling, award-winning author, and Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick, Laurie Frankel
“A gift to be cherished.”
- The Seattle Times
“Author/narrator Mickey Rowe delivers a fierce and vivacious performance in this audiobook about his arduous and triumphant journey … His talent as an actor makes for a dramatic audiobook full of wit and charm, with perfect moments of humor in some sections, and bold authenticity in other, more somber, segments. A powerful and important story with something for everyone.”
- Audio Files Magazine Earphones Award Winner
“Mickey is the definition of a ‘trailblazer’, and blazes with such grace and effervescence, through the highs of success and rollercoaster of life he remains grounded and relatable. This book is personal, charming, important and touching. No matter one’s lived experience it is incredibly pertinent.”
- Award-winning Disability Rights Activist, Forbes 30 under 30, Princes Diana Award Winner, and Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation’s Keely Cat-Wells
“Mickey Rowe is a gracious, wise, and yes, fearless guide as he enables us to experience the world as he does and more importantly, helps us to envision new possibilities. Mickey is not just an accomplished actor who can command a stage, he’s a thinker who can expand our understanding of “difference” and “normal”. He’s also a generous writer with a distinctive voice and the skill to make “Fearlessly Different” a deeply personal reading experience — like a good conversation with a smart and kind friend who has a lot to share.”
— Josephine Reed, National Endowment for the Arts
3) Demystifying Disability by Emily Ladau
People with disabilities are the world’s largest minority, an estimated 15 percent of the global population. But many of us — disabled and nondisabled alike — don’t know how to act, what to say, or how to be an ally to the disability community. Demystifying Disability is a friendly handbook on the important disability issues you need to know about, including:
• How to appropriately talk about disability.
• Recognizing and avoiding ableism (discrimination toward disabled people).
• Practicing good disability etiquette.
Authored by celebrated disability rights advocate, speaker, and writer Emily Ladau, this practical, intersectional guide offers all readers a welcoming place to understand disability as part of the human experience.
“Whether you have a disability, or you are non-disabled, Demystifying Disability is a MUST READ. Emily Ladau is a wise spirit who thinks deeply and writes exquisitely.”
- Judy Heumann, international disability rights advocate and author of Being Heumann
“Emily Ladau has done her homework, and Demystifying Disability is her candid, accessible cheat sheet for anyone who wants to thoughtfully join the conversation. A teacher who makes you forget you’re learning; Emily makes the intimidating approachable and the complicated clear. This book is a generous and needed gift.”
- Rebekah Taussig, author of Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body
