71 books like Living with Polio

By Daniel J. Wilson,

Here are 71 books that Living with Polio fans have personally recommended if you like Living with Polio. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Why I Burned My Book and Other Essays on Disability

Meredith Eliassen Author Of Helen Keller: A Life in American History

From my list on disability and related inclusive movements.

Why am I passionate about this?

There have always been disabled people shaping my worldview and understanding, however, I am an expert only about my own disabilities. Disabled storytellers, including Helen Keller, sometimes utilize tactical silence to scream… I value that! However, barriers confronting the disabled require broad and sometimes loud collective action from many people in many communities and not just a marginalized few. Disability activism is a complex, tactical fight over time for self-determination that touches all of us at some point. COVID, world events, and experiencing some barriers disabled and marginalized groups face all the time have compelled me to share a few of my favorite reads related to disability and inclusion.

Meredith's book list on disability and related inclusive movements

Meredith Eliassen Why did Meredith love this book?

As a student at San Francisco State University, I took Paul Longmore’s HIST 490 “Disability in America” course and it quite simply changed how I interpret United States history. The autobiographical title essay in Why I Burned My Book presents foundational logic for understanding legal and cultural barriers impacting the disabled, and how capitalism impacts minority groups. Nobody speaks better on disability than the disabled. Longmore creates a model built upon the work of earlier disability scholars-activist in presenting “Catch-22” paradigms in oppressive laws related to race and gender impacting minority groups. When I read Longmore’s ideas, I can again look into his insightful eyes flashing sparks of humor, defiance, anger, and joy. My book about Helen Keller simply would not exist without Longmore’s passionate investment in students.

By Paul K. Longmore,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Why I Burned My Book and Other Essays on Disability as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Personal inclination made me a historian. Personal encounter with public policy made me an activist."


Book cover of Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language: Hereditary Deafness on Martha’s Vineyard

Meredith Eliassen Author Of Helen Keller: A Life in American History

From my list on disability and related inclusive movements.

Why am I passionate about this?

There have always been disabled people shaping my worldview and understanding, however, I am an expert only about my own disabilities. Disabled storytellers, including Helen Keller, sometimes utilize tactical silence to scream… I value that! However, barriers confronting the disabled require broad and sometimes loud collective action from many people in many communities and not just a marginalized few. Disability activism is a complex, tactical fight over time for self-determination that touches all of us at some point. COVID, world events, and experiencing some barriers disabled and marginalized groups face all the time have compelled me to share a few of my favorite reads related to disability and inclusion.

Meredith's book list on disability and related inclusive movements

Meredith Eliassen Why did Meredith love this book?

Paul Longmore assigned Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language for the “Disability in America” course I took. As a folklorist this book hooked me. It is totally unique, combining science (genetics), history, maritime culture, and community. It consolidates sign language “oral histories” documenting a Deaf community’s cultural heritage in Martha’s Vineyard passed through generations. Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language offers an essential message from this tight-knit community where deafness was more a trait than a disability. Understanding how Helen Keller had a Deafblind destiny shaped by her times (as earlier were Deafblind woman should be women Julia Brace and Laura Bridgman), I sometimes wonder if Keller would have been less stressed if she had not been pressured by proponents of auralism like Alexander Graham Bell to learn to speak aloud.

By Nora Ellen Groce,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the seventeenth century to the early years of the twentieth, the population of Martha's Vineyard manifested an extremely high rate of profound hereditary deafness. In stark contrast to the experience of most Deaf people in our own society, the Vineyarders who were born Deaf were so thoroughly integrated into the daily life of the community that they were not seen-and did not see themselves-as handicapped or as a group apart. Deaf people were included in all aspects of life, such as town politics, jobs, church affairs, and social life. How was this possible?

On the Vineyard, hearing and Deaf…


Book cover of Disability and Theatre: A Practical Manual for Inclusion in the Arts

Meredith Eliassen Author Of Helen Keller: A Life in American History

From my list on disability and related inclusive movements.

Why am I passionate about this?

There have always been disabled people shaping my worldview and understanding, however, I am an expert only about my own disabilities. Disabled storytellers, including Helen Keller, sometimes utilize tactical silence to scream… I value that! However, barriers confronting the disabled require broad and sometimes loud collective action from many people in many communities and not just a marginalized few. Disability activism is a complex, tactical fight over time for self-determination that touches all of us at some point. COVID, world events, and experiencing some barriers disabled and marginalized groups face all the time have compelled me to share a few of my favorite reads related to disability and inclusion.

Meredith's book list on disability and related inclusive movements

Meredith Eliassen Why did Meredith love this book?

My personal creativity is not tidy… I believe nobody creates in a vacuum. The disabled contribute intelligence, perspective, and expression to all modes of creative production. Understanding how to utilize talent from any historically marginalized group means learning how to communicate with folks with diverse abilities and backgrounds. Utilizing respectful language and practices with diverse communities will draw and engage audiences with more vibrant storytelling in today’s world. This practical guide includes case studies designed to guide theater companies to create inclusive productions with the disabled in central and creative roles. Disability and Theatre illustrates how in the theater, where “all the world is a stage”, as in our own lives, creative processes emerge when people with different abilities work together… that is just good living.

By Stephanie Barton-Farcas,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Disability and Theatre as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Disability and Theatre: A Practical Manual for Inclusion in the Arts is a step-by step manual on how to create inclusive theatre, including how and where to find actors, how to publicize productions, run rehearsals, act intricate scenes like fights and battles, work with unions, contracts, and agents, and deal with technical issues. This practical information was born from the author's 16 years of running the first inclusive theatre company in New York City, and is applicable to any performance level: children's theatre, community theatre, regional theatre, touring companies, Broadway, and academic theatre. This book features anecdotal case studies that…


Book cover of We Move Together

Meredith Eliassen Author Of Helen Keller: A Life in American History

From my list on disability and related inclusive movements.

Why am I passionate about this?

There have always been disabled people shaping my worldview and understanding, however, I am an expert only about my own disabilities. Disabled storytellers, including Helen Keller, sometimes utilize tactical silence to scream… I value that! However, barriers confronting the disabled require broad and sometimes loud collective action from many people in many communities and not just a marginalized few. Disability activism is a complex, tactical fight over time for self-determination that touches all of us at some point. COVID, world events, and experiencing some barriers disabled and marginalized groups face all the time have compelled me to share a few of my favorite reads related to disability and inclusion.

Meredith's book list on disability and related inclusive movements

Meredith Eliassen Why did Meredith love this book?

I believe a society’s resilience does not happen by coddling, oppressing, or marginalizing the disabled (or any minority group), but by fostering holistic, inclusive communities that move in cinque. We Move Together is a picture book about disability justice designed for intergenerational sharing. It is appropriate for all ages as it simply states we as a society move best together no matter of disability, race, gender, or age. The brilliance of this straightforward assertion is its universal intersectionality. The book contains helpful explanations of statements in the verses along with resources for learning more in the back. I love this message! Removing barriers to access, communication, work, relationships, and living independent and self-determined lives helps everyone and fosters healthy democracy.

By Kelly Fritsch, Anne McGuire, Eduardo Trejos (illustrator)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked We Move Together as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A bold and colorful exploration of all the ways that people navigate through the spaces around them and a celebration of the relationships we build along the way. We Move Together follows a mixed-ability group of kids as they creatively negotiate everyday barriers and find joy and connection in disability culture and community. A perfect tool for families, schools, and libraries to facilitate conversations about disability, accessibility, social justice and community building. Includes a kid-friendly glossary (for ages 3–10). This fully accessible ebook includes alt-text for image descriptions, a read aloud function, and a zoom-in function that allows readers to…


Book cover of The Scars That Have Shaped Me: How God Meets Us in Suffering

Sarah Walton Author Of Hope When It Hurts: Biblical Reflections to Help You Grasp God's Purpose in Your Suffering

From my list on finding hope and comfort in difficult times.

Why am I passionate about this?

I believe the Bible is God’s Word, that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, and that he loves us. But after enduring years of physical, mental, and emotional pain, special needs in one of our children, two job losses, and a degenerative ankle, I’ve struggled to understand why he’s allowed it. Over the years, God has been teaching me that there is more to our suffering than meets the eye. And what we see as pointless, God promises to redeem and use for his good purposes. As I’ve grown to trust Jesus, he’s changed me, and given me comfort, hope, and joy in the midst of my sorrows. 

Sarah's book list on finding hope and comfort in difficult times

Sarah Walton Why did Sarah love this book?

Between suffering from polio as a child, post-polio syndrome as an adult, betrayal, the loss of a son, and a husband who left soon after – Vaneetha Risner has endured unimaginable suffering. For that reason, her honest words about suffering have left an incredible impact on me as I’ve endured my own. She doesn’t “preach” to us as if we need to get our act together, but she writes with compassion, honesty, and comfort as one who’s been there. Despite having every reason to be angry and bitter at the people who have hurt her and God himself, she is full of wisdom, grace, and joy, and shares about the hope she has that has enabled her to endure. 

By Vaneetha Risner,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Scars That Have Shaped Me as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Twenty-one surgeries by age thirteen. Years in the hospital. Verbal and physical bullying from schoolmates. Multiple miscarriages as a young wife. The death of a child. A debilitating progressive disease. Riveting pain. Abandonment. Unwanted divorce.

Vaneetha Rendall Risner begged God for grace that would deliver her. But God offered something better: his sustaining grace.

In The Scars That Have Shaped Me, Vaneetha does more than share her stories of pain; she invites other sufferers to taste with her the goodness of a sovereign God who will carry us in our darkest of days.

“Vaneetha writes with creativity, biblical faithfulness, compelling…


Book cover of Polio Eradication and Its Discontents: A Historian's Journey Through an International Public Health (UN) Civil War

Tim Schwab Author Of The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire

From my list on if Bill Gates is our 'good billionaire'.

Why am I passionate about this?

My writing career has been organized around the old-school journalistic mission to ‘afflict the comforted and comfort the afflicted.’ Often, I take on big targets that other journalists have missed—a case in point being Bill Gates. News outlets have published thousands of one-sided stories about Gates’s philanthropic goals and gifts but seldom interrogate the Gates Foundation for what it is: an unaccountable, undemocratic structure of power. My investigation of Bill Gates, of course, stands on the shoulders of giants. The five books I recommend here paved the way for me to break new ground, expand the story, and hopefully spark a bigger public debate.

Tim's book list on if Bill Gates is our 'good billionaire'

Tim Schwab Why did Tim love this book?

For Bill Gates, there is no bigger philanthropic goal than eradicating polio, the focus of historian William Muraskin’s book. The author puts a critical lens on the polio eradication campaign not because he is a critic of vaccines but because he’s a critic of colonialism. Why do powerful Western actors—like Bill Gates—get to decide the public health priorities of poor nations? 

And who, really, is the primary beneficiary of the Gates Foundation? The answer I came up with when writing my book is Bill Gates. Between the political influence, public applause, reputational enhancements, and tax benefits, Gates himself is the single biggest beneficiary of the foundation.

By William Muraskin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Polio Eradication and Its Discontents as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

There are many infectious diseases which kill millions of children every year the world over, but polio is not one of them. So why did the World Health Assembly in 1988 choose the eradication of polio as a global goal? This is the key question that William Muraskin asks and it inexorably leads to the unravelling of the official heroic story of the fight against polio. The author finds that the public health agenda of every single nation of the world was effectively hijacked by a small group of people working at the global level. They were out to show…


Book cover of The Remember Box

Susan Grant Author Of The Bottle House

From my list on authentically illustrating genuine Christian faith.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Bible college graduate whose faith has always been a practical matter. Because I learned to find the “so what” of the Bible, when I became a teacher of the Bible in the public schools of Rowan County, North Carolina, my elective courses had waiting lists for students to get in to. As I now teach in Maine, I found I could continue to share a practical Christian faith through my writing. The books I have listed here do the very thing that I seek in my own writing.

Susan's book list on authentically illustrating genuine Christian faith

Susan Grant Why did Susan love this book?

I laughed out loud reading The Remember Box. Though the story is serious, Sprinkle captured the concerns and problem-solving that 11-year-old girls have in a time in history, 1949, when life in the South was confusing for those families who took a stand against prejudice.

The author sprinkles Carley’s sense of humor throughout the novel, such as describing an imaginary friend her young neighbor has. You grow to love and understand Carley.

That Carley’s Uncle Stephen is a minister, and the novel describes the difficulties of applying God’s word to real-life issues, makes the book even better. As Carley deals with the loss of her mother to polio, she must decide if she wants to embrace her uncle’s Christian faith or reject it.

By Patricia Sprinkle,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Remember Box as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Summer in Job's Corner meant big trees, cool grass, and sweltering afternoons stretching endlessly under the Southern sun. Those were the days without plastic, microwaves, television, or air conditioning, a time when clocks ticked comfortingly in the night and a cool breeze was a gift. But as the long sultry summer of 1949 comes to an end, events will transform this sleepy Southern crossroads.

After losing her mother to polio, eleven-year-old Carley Marshall comes to Job's Corner to make a new start, along with her Aunt Kate and Uncle Stephen Whitfield and her cousins Abby and John. The family is…


Book cover of The Woman with the Cure

Stephanie Dray Author Of Becoming Madam Secretary

From my list on historical fiction women who changed the world.

Why am I passionate about this?

My graduating class in high school once designated me as “the most likely to start a feminist revolution.” That was a lot to live up to, but I’ve made a very small stab at it by writing about women who have changed our world. I love to bring awareness about the contributions great women have made in history, but I also want modern women to see themselves in these struggles. I always say that Historical Fiction is an exercise of empathy, and I hope my work encourages women today to get involved and make a difference in the world, too.

Stephanie's book list on historical fiction women who changed the world

Stephanie Dray Why did Stephanie love this book?

As the daughter of one of the last children to contract polio before the vaccines, I knew this was going to be an important book even before I opened it.

But it was also a page-turning chronicle of Dr. Dorothy Horstmann, a pioneer in the battle to eradicate polio. I was often infuriated by what she faced as a woman in science during the 1950s; it was a very good read that brought much-needed attention to this extraordinary woman’s gifts to medical science.

By Lynn Cullen,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Woman with the Cure as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Huge applause... women have always been in science—despite those who would pretend otherwise.” --Bonnie Garmus, New York Times bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry

She gave up everything — and changed the world.

A riveting novel based on the true story of the woman who stopped a pandemic, from the bestselling author of Mrs. Poe.
 
In 1940s and ’50s America, polio is as dreaded as the atomic bomb. No one’s life is untouched by this disease that kills or paralyzes its victims, particularly children. Outbreaks of the virus across the country regularly put American cities in lockdown. Some of the…


Book cover of Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio

Marsha Hayles Author Of Breathing Room

From my list on when illness touches a young person's life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an author fortunate to be alive because of emergency medical treatments I received as an infant, treatments not available to one of my older sisters who died as a result. That I grew up in Rochester Minnesota—home to the world-famous Mayo Clinic where my father worked as a pediatric endocrinologist—also may have increased my awareness of how illness and its medical treatments can affect a young person’s life. 

Marsha's book list on when illness touches a young person's life

Marsha Hayles Why did Marsha love this book?

Peg Kehret brings humor and a genuine can-do attitude to her memoir about being struck by polio when she was twelve years old, leaving her paralyzed in both her arms and legs. The story of her fight to recover and to walk again is enriched by her friendship with fellow patients, the generous love of her family, and the care of a determined nurse. Peg is neither saint nor grouch—just someone you like as much as you admire. This is a feel-good book about a feel-bad topic. 

By Peg Kehret,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Small Steps as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 9, 10, 11, and 12.

What is this book about?

Peg Kehret was stricken with polio when she was twelve years old. At first paralyzed and terrified, she fought her way to recovery, aided by doctors and therapists, a loving family, supportive roommates fighting their own battles with the disease, and plenty of grit and luck. With the humor and suspense that are her trademarks, acclaimed author Peg Kehret vividly recreates the true story of her year of heartbreak and triumph.


Book cover of Cracking India

Nev March Author Of Murder in Old Bombay

From my list on India blending history with gripping mysteries.

Why am I passionate about this?

I lived the first 24 years of my life in Mumbai and traveled to many parts of India. I’ve had close friends of every community and religion and been fascinated by the incredible diversity. By studying historical crimes and how they were reported and investigated, I learned a great deal about the norms of Indian culture. Reading (and writing) historical mysteries allowed me to dive into past eras and immerse myself in the tumultuous events that have shaped our world today. While I’m obsessed with the turn of the 20th century, mysteries in later years also delight me. Enjoy this selection of mysteries set in India that reveal the inner workings of its diverse culture.

Nev's book list on India blending history with gripping mysteries

Nev March Why did Nev love this book?

Sidhwa’s book describes the partition of India that formed present-day India and Pakistan. These tortured days and the tragedies and massacres that followed are viewed through the lens of a gentle and educated Parsi family. The narrator is Lenny, a young girl afflicted with polio, whose active observations center on the members of her family and servants. Her eighteen-year-old Ayah and the devotion of the ice-candy man play out against the backdrop of terrible hatred and betrayal, where religious affiliation trumps all, even what some call love, and others, lust. 

This book had me weeping for days. Its simplicity is deceptive. The simple narration from a six-year-old is entirely believable, the confusion of what really happened, and what it means. But the adult me could read between the lines and understand the full measure of tragedy, the horror, the inevitable result. And I was glad that Lenny was too young…

By Bapsi Sidhwa,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Cracking India as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A New York Times Notable Book: A girl’s happy home life is suddenly disrupted by the 1947 Partition of India in this “multifaceted jewel of a novel” (Houston Chronicle).

Young Lenny Sethi is kept out of school because she suffers from polio. She spends her days with Ayah, her beautiful nanny, visiting with the many admirers that Ayah draws. It is in the company of these working-class characters that Lenny learns about religious differences, religious intolerance, and the blossoming genocidal strife on the eve of Partition.

As she matures, Lenny begins to identify the differences between the Hindus, Moslems, and…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Polio, disability, and people with disabilities?

Polio 21 books
Disability 53 books