I’ve lived most of my life with invisible disabilities that affect my daily activities, and I hope to encourage nuanced, empowering, and inclusive conversations about disabilities with my book, So Much More to Helen! All of my nonfiction picture books—Miep and the Most Famous Diary, Winged Wonders, Cougar Crossing, Ocean Soup, Make Way for Animals!, and more—are about “solutionaries” who help people, animals, and the planet. They’ve won Golden Kite and Eureka! Nonfiction Honor Awards, starred reviews, and spots on best book and state reading lists. Mostly, I hope they inspire compassion, curiosity, and action.
I wrote
So Much More to Helen: The Passions and Pursuits of Helen Keller
I love this picture book that plants compassion, comfort, and connection for kids with all kinds of disabilities. Starting with author (and Supreme Court Justice!) Sonia Sotomayor’s own story of living with diabetes, then award-winning illustrator Rafael López’s story of living with asthma, it introduces readers in first person to an array of diverse kids with various visible and invisible disabilities. Using questions to help make each child relatable and allowing many children to see themselves in a book for the first time, this book opens hearts and minds.
Feeling different, especially as a kid, can be tough. But in the same way that different types of plants and flowers make a garden more beautiful and enjoyable, different types of people make our world more vibrant and wonderful.
In Just Ask, United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor celebrates the different abilities kids (and people of all ages) have. Using her own experience as a child who was diagnosed with diabetes, Justice Sotomayor writes about children with all sorts of challenges - and looks at the special powers those kids have as well. As the kids work together to…
I chose this illustrated collected biography because it highlights a wonderfully diverse array of real people living with visible and invisible disabilities. Featuring both famous and non-famous people of various races, genders, and sexualities, with both physical and mental health conditions, it’s incredibly inclusive. The people’s stories, at one page or less, are short enough to keep kids’ attention and the back matter includes an important glossary of terms for talking about disabilities. This book celebrates many different ways people live and work with disabilities and encourages openness and inclusion.
"Intelligent, politically bold, and beautiful to browse [...] Every bookshelf needs a copy." - Disability Arts Online
In this stylishly illustrated biography anthology, meet 34 artists, thinkers, athletes and activists with disabilities, from past and present. From Frida Kahlo to Stephen Hawking, find out how these iconic figures have overcome obstacles, owned their differences and paved the way for others by making their bodies and minds work for them.
These short biographies tell the stories of people who have faced unique challenges which have not stopped them from becoming trailblazers, innovators, advocates and makers. Each person is a leading figure…
This book, for me, is important as the first trade nonfiction picture book about the fight for the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). I hope and assume more books on this topic are in the pipeline, as there is so much more to share with kids about this crucial social justice movement! Jennifer Keenan’s story is great for kids because she was a kid herself when she crawled up the U.S. Capitol steps to fight for disability rights. This book offers an inspiring, personal entryway into the disability rights movement and the importance of having laws and systems to back up beliefs about access for all.
2021 Schneider Family Book Award Young Children's Honor Book (American Library Association) Experience the true story of lifelong activist Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins and her participation in the Capitol Crawl in this inspiring autobiographical picture book. This beautifully illustrated story includes a foreword from Jennifer and backmatter detailing her life and the history of the disability rights movement. This is the story of a little girl who just wanted to go, even when others tried to stop her. Jennifer Keelan was determined to make a change-even if she was just a kid. She never thought her wheelchair could slow her down, but…
I chose this book in part because Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboa was a young person who helped create the Persons with Disabilities Act in his country, Ghana, like Jennifer Keenan in the United States. Again, I think it’s important for kids to see that they can make a difference when it comes to big things like laws. I also chose this book because it features a Black subject, while most of the picture books about people with disabilities focus on white subjects (including my own), and more books about and by BIPOC are sorely needed.
Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah's inspiring true story—which was turned into a film, Emmanuel's Gift, narrated by Oprah Winfrey—is nothing short of remarkable.
Born in Ghana, West Africa, with one deformed leg, he was dismissed by most people—but not by his mother, who taught him to reach for his dreams. As a boy, Emmanuel hopped to school more than two miles each way, learned to play soccer, left home at age thirteen to provide for his family, and, eventually, became a cyclist. He rode an astonishing four hundred miles across Ghana in 2001, spreading his powerful message: disability is not inability. Today,…
This book is just so beautiful and personal, from the poetry to the art, that it hits right in the heart. Basically a simple picture book memoir of a boy figuring out how to deal with his stutter, I love how it is about everyday mindset, not any grand action, and how a small shift can change so much. It’s about the beauty of silence and understanding from a parent to a child, and it gives kids (and adults) without a stutter a glimpse at what it might feel like to struggle with forming words in that way. This book can’t help but grow compassion and insight in every person who reads it.
Most folks know the same famous story of Helen Keller—a DeafBlind girl who learned to understand sign language at the family water pump. But what do you really know about her? Did you know she was an activist, a rebel, a writer, a performer, a romantic?
There is so much more to Helen than we usually learn in school! In this picture book, the story of Helen Keller’s passionate, boundless life unfolds—reminding us that she was, as we all are, many things.
