Today I added another baseball book to the list of reviews of children's books about real or fictional characters with disabilities. Given my childhood hatred of sports,it seems a bit odd to me that I am finding it enjoyable to read and write positive reviews of "sports books." In retrospect, my diagnosis of NLD as an adult explains my complete and total lack of success at sports as a child. I am finding as an adult, who feels successful in many endeavors, I can find a way to approach sports (at least books about sports) from a position of strength. I find myself using this position of strength as a platform to advocate for children with disabilities which are different from mine, children whose success in sports can form the beginnings of the sense of competence that is necessary to live life fully. I am also free to marvel at the resilience of those who cling to a dream of participating in some way in a world that at first may appear to be attractive and yet impossible to reach.
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AuthorThe content on this website mostly comes from my perspective as a youth services librarian with disabilities. The further I travel along life's road, the more entwined these two parts of my identity become. Librarian: I have an MLS from Rutgers University and have working in public libraries for nearly 20 years. The focus on my career has always been youth services. Disabled: I've been disabled more than twice as long as I've been a librarian. My experience started at birth when I was immediately diagnosed with cleft palate. Also present was a non-verbal learning disability (NLD) for short. This was not formally diagnosed until I was 19, leading to years of frustration. My Tourette Syndrome was not present at birth, but surely started young as I don't ever remember living without it. The Tourette was also not diagnosed until adulthood, further compounding my frustration. Coincidentally, I was also diagnosed with IBD (more commonly known as Chron's\Ulcerative Colitis) at the age of 19. That was another easy diagnosis--as with cleft palate, they look and they see it. Archives
September 2015
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