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Representations of disability

This guide highlights books, ebooks, films and streaming videos available fromt the Pace libraries that provide representation of disabled people.

First person narratives of disability

All of the books listed here are first person narratives from disabled people.  Print books, if they are not on Reserve, can be sent to your home campus. Once you click on the link for the book title, click on the "Place Hold" button to have the book sent to another campus.

Most of the ebooks have a built-in audio reader for improved accessibility.

First person narratives of disability

Cover of the book Fall down 7 times get up 8 : a young man's voice from the silence of autism

Fall down 7 times get up 8 : a young man's voice from the silence of autism

Beekman Library Stacks
RC553.A88 H52 2017
 
From the publisher:
Naoki Higashida wrote The Reason I Jump as a 13-year-old boy. Now, he shares his thoughts and experiences as a 24-year old young man with severe autism. In short, powerful chapters, he explores education, identity, family, society and personal growth. He also allows readers to experience profound moments we take for granted, like the thought-steps necessary for him to register that it's raining outside. Introduced by award-winning author David Mitchell (co-translator with his wife, KA Yoshida), this book is part memoir, part critique of a world that sees disabilities ahead of disabled people. It is a self-portrait-in-progress of a young man who happens to have autism, and who wants to help us understand it better.

Cover of the book Disability visibility : first-person stories from the twenty-first century

Disability visibility : first-person stories from the twenty-first century

Available as an ebook or on Reserve at the Mortola Library

A groundbreaking collection of first-person writing on the joys and challenges of the modern disability experience: Disability Visibility brings together the voices of activists, authors, lawyers, politicians, artists, and everyday people...activist Alice Wong brings together an urgent, galvanizing collection of personal essays by contemporary disabled writers.

Cover of the book I Raise My Eyes to Say Yes

I Raise My Eyes to Say Yes

Mortola Library Stacks
RC388 .S45 1989

The story of a woman who has never spoken a word, never walked, never fed herself or combed her own hair--trapped in a body that is functionally useless, but her mind works perfectly.

Cover of the book The Story of My Life

The Story of My LIfe

Mortola and Beekman Stacks
HV1624.K4 A15 1954

Also available as an ebook

Summary from Project Gutenberg: 

"The Story of My Life" by Helen Keller is an autobiographical account written during the late 19th century. This profound narrative details her experiences as a deaf and blind child, chronicling her struggles and triumphs as she transitions from a world of isolation into one filled with knowledge and communication through the loving guidance of her teacher, Anne Sullivan. The work explores themes of resilience, the transformative power of education, and the deep bond between student and teacher.

Cover of the book Come, let me guide you : a life shared with a guide dog

Come, let me guide you : a life shared with a guide dog

Available as an ebook

Come, Let Me Guide You explores the intimate communication between author Susan Krieger and her guide dog Teela over the ten year span of their working life together....Come, Let Me Guide You makes an invaluable contribution to the literature on human-animal communication and on the guide-dog-human experience, as well as contributing to disability  and feminist studies.

Cover of the book Being Heumann : an unrepentant memoir of a disability rights activist

Being Heumann : an unrepentant memoir of a disability rights activist

Mortola Library Stacks
JC571 .H49 2020

One of the most influential disability rights activists in US history tells her personal story of fighting for the right to receive an education, have a job, and just be human. A story of fighting to belong in a world that wasn't built for all of us and of one woman's activism;from the streets of Brooklyn and San Francisco to inside the halls of Washington; Being Heumann recounts Judy Heumann's lifelong battle to achieve respect, acceptance, and inclusion in society.

 

Cover of the book Far from home : memories of World War II and afterward

Far from home : memories of World War II and afterward

Available as an ebook

Wright continues her memoirs describing her life as a Deaf, African American woman working in Washington, DC, during World War II, then raising a family in her hometown of Iron Mine, NC.

Cover of the book Ill Feelings

Ill Feelings

Beekman Library Stacks
RC108 .H384 2022
 
From the publisher:
Structured around the narrative of the author and her mother's own ill feelings, Alice Hattrick's collective biography of illness branches out into the records of ill health women have written about in diaries and letters. Her cast of characters includes Virginia Woolf and Alice James, the poets Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Emily Dickinson, Ruskin's lost love Rose La Touche, and the artist Louise Bourgeois. Following in the footsteps of Leslie Jamison's The Empathy Exams and Emilie Pine's Notes to Self, Ill Feelings is a moving and defiant debut from a bold new voice in narrative non-fiction with a generative, transcendent rage of its own.
 
 

Cover of the book Tough As They Come

Tough As They Come

Mortola Library Stacks
DS371.413 .M55 2016
 
Summary from NNLM:
While on tour in Afghanistan, United States Army Staff Sergeant Travis Mills was caught in an IED blast days before his twenty-fifth birthday. He survived, but at a cost, becoming one of only five soldiers from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to survive a quadruple amputation. Suddenly, Travis faced a future drastically different from the one he had imagined for himself. Tough as They Come is the story of his remarkable recovery and an inspirational account of willpower and endurance. 

Cover of the book What's that pig outdoors? : a memoir of deafness

What's that pig outdoors? : a memoir of deafness

Available as an ebook

Henry Kisor lost his hearing at age three to meningitis and encephalitis but went on to excel in the most verbal of professions as a literary journalist. This new and expanded edition of Kisor's engrossing memoir recounts his life as a deaf person in a hearing world ...Bringing those conversations into the twenty-first century, Kisor updates the continuing disagreements between those who advocate sign language and those who practice speech and lip-reading, discusses the increased acceptance of deaf people's abilities and idiosyncrasies, and considers technological advancements such as blogging, instant messaging, and hand-held mobile devices that have enabled deaf people to communicate with the hearing world on its own terms.

Cover of the book Body, remember : a memoir

Body, remember : a memoir

Available as an ebook

In this poetic, introspective memoir, Kenny Fries illustrates his intersecting identities as gay, Jewish, and disabled. While learning about the history of his body through medical records and his physical scars, Fries discovers just how deeply the memories and psychic scars run. As he reflects on his relationships with his family, his compassionate doctor, the brother who resented his disability, and the men who taught him to love, he confronts the challenges of his life. Body, Remember is a story about connection, a redemptive and passionate testimony to one man's search for the sources of identity and difference.

Cover of the book Tuesday's promise : one veteran, one dog, and their bold quest to change lives

Tuesday's promise : one veteran, one dog, and their bold quest to change lives

Mortola Library Stacks
HV1569.6 .M559 2017
 
Following the success of his New York Times bestseller, Until Tuesday, Iraq War veteran Luis Carlos Montalván takes to the road with his beloved Golden Retriever service dog, Tuesday, advocating for America's wounded warriors and for each other. Luis's first book sparked a national conversation about service dogs and PTSD. In this spectacular new memoir, he and Tuesday bring their healing mission to the next level, showing how these beautifully trained animals can assist soldiers, veterans and many others with disabilities.

Cover of the book Thinking in pictures : and other reports from my life with autism

Thinking in pictures : and other reports from my life with autism

Mortola Library Stacks
RC553.A88 G74 1995
 
Here, in Temple Grandin's own words, is the story of what it is like to live with autism...Thinking in Pictures also gives information from the front lines of autism, including treatment, medication, and diagnosis, as well as Temple's insights into genius, savants, sensory phenomena, and animal behavior. Ultimately, it is Temple's unique ability to describe the way her visual mind works and how she first made the connection between her impairment and animal temperament that is the basis of her extraordinary gift and phenomenal success.

Cover of the book Miracle boy grows up : how the disability rights revolution saved my sanity

Miracle boy grows up : how the disability rights revolution saved my sanity

Beekman Library Stacks
RC935.A8 M38 2012
 
Describes how the author, an NPR commentator and writer who was born with spinal muscular atrophy, was expected to die in childhood but who with the support of a growing disability rights movement became one of the first students in a wheelchair to attend Harvard.

Cover of the book A different life : growing up learning disabled and other adventures : a memoir

A different life : growing up learning disabled and other adventures : a memoir

Mortola Library Stacks
RB155.5 .B73 2009
 
Summary:
Born with a hole in his heart that required invasive surgery when he was only three months old, Quinn Bradlee suffered from a battery of illnesses—, seizures, migraines, fevers— from an early age. But it wasn't until he was fourteen that Bradlee was correctly diagnosed with Velo-Cardio-Facial Syndrome (VCFS), a widespread, little-understood disorder that is expressed through a wide range of physical ailments and learning disabilities....In this funny, moving, and often irreverent book, Bradlee tells his own inspirational story of growing up as an LD kid— ... Bradlee describes the challenges and joys of living “a different life with disarming candor and humor.

Cover of the book Fading scars : my queer disability history

Fading scars : my queer disability history

Mortola Library Reserve
HV3013.O85 A3 2019
 
Corbett Joan O'Toole's deeply personal account of making history in the disability rights movement of the 20th century in Berkeley, California. Her unique perspective as a white disabled lesbian allows us to peek at the complexity of how change happens.

Cover of the book Centered : autism, basketball, and one athlete's dreams

Centered : autism, basketball, and one athlete's dreams

Available as an ebook

Diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorder, a form of autism, as a toddler, Anthony Ianni wasn't expected to succeed in school or participate in sports, but he had other ideas. As a child, Ianni told anybody who would listen, including head coach Tom Izzo, that he would one day play for the Michigan State Spartans. Centered: Autism, Basketball, and One Athlete's Dreams is the firsthand account of a young man's social, academic, and athletic struggles and his determination to reach his goals.