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Accessibility Resources: In the Library

In observance of National Developemental Disibilities Month

A quote from Neil Milliken which reads "Who said we want to conform to the norm? Celebrate and embrace our differences."

Research and Resources

Help Yourself Now

Although we live in the age of information and everyone is bombarded with potential sources of help, sifting through those possibilities can be a chore. This is where Help Yourself comes in! With this useful reference, author Jan Yager provides an overview of the various situations that most people have to navigate, from calling customer service or reporting a crime to finding credible and reliable information about a business, health, or legal concern.

Read This to Get Smarter

We live in a time where it has never been more important to be knowledgeable about a host of social issues, and to be confident and appropriate in how to talk about them. What's the best way to ask someone what their pronouns are? How do you talk about racism with someone who doesn't seem to get it? What is intersectionality, and why do you need to understand it? While it can seem intimidating or overwhelming to learn and talk about such issues, it's never been easier thanks to educator and historian Blair Imani, creator of the viral sensation Smarter in Seconds videos.

Demystifying Disability

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. 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.

The Mark of Slavery

Time and again, antebellum Americans justified slavery and white supremacy by linking blackness to disability, defectiveness, and dependency. Jenifer L. Barclay examines the ubiquitous narratives that depicted black people with disabilities as pitiable, monstrous, or comical, narratives used not only to defend slavery but argue against it. Prescient in its analysis and rich in detail, The Mark of Slavery is a powerful addition to the intertwined histories of disability, slavery, and race.

Raising Henry

In this honest, self-critical, and surprisingly funny book, Adams chronicles the first three years of Henry's life and her own transformative experience of unexpectedly becoming the mother of a disabled child. A highly personal story of one family's encounter with disability, Raising Henry is also an insightful exploration of today's knotty terrain of social prejudice, disability policy, genetics, prenatal testing, medical training, and inclusive education.

Disability Incarcerated

Disability Incarcerated gathers thirteen contributions from an impressive array of fields. Taken together, these essays assert that a complex understanding of disability is crucial to an understanding of incarceration, and that we must expand what has come to be called 'incarceration.'

Attacking Anxiety

Drawing on the principles of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), this book sets out a clear, enjoyable, step-by-step approach for addressing the sorts of anxieties, fears and phobias that are so common in children and teens with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and related challenges. Designed to help parents of children with autism spectrum disorders and the teachers and therapists who work with them, this book is an excellent resource for successfully alleviating many of the anxieties and phobias that interfere with life enjoyment, not only for the child but for the entire family.

Intellectual Disability

Emphasizing the humanity of persons with intellectual and related developmental disabilities, psychiatrist and pediatrician James Harris provides essential information on assessment and diagnosis of intellectual disability, treatments for specific disorders, and ways to take advantage of the widearray of services available today. Intellectual Disability is a must-read for parents and families of those with neurodevelopmental disorders, providing guidance and essential information to help their family members effectively, and to make a significant, positive difference in their lives now and in the future.

Accessible America

Bess Williamson provides an extraordinary look at everyday design, marrying accessibility with aesthetic, to provide an insight into a world in which we are all active participants, but often passive onlookers. Richly detailed, with stories of politics and innovation, Williamson's Accessible America takes us through this important history, showing how American ideas of individualism and rights came to shape the material world, often with unexpected consequences.

Writing Disability

What accounts for the differing ways that individuals and cultures have tried to make sense of mental and physical disabilities? Can we see a pattern of change over time? Sara Newman examines personal narratives across a broad sweep of history from ancient Greece to the present day to reveal the interplay of dynamics that have shaped both personal and societal conceptions of mental and physical difference.

The Trouble with Illness

Illness or disability can isolate people by creating vast differences in their experiences where previously there were none. Friends and family can find themselves saying the wrong thing or awkwardly avoiding topics as a result. This book takes a candid look at how discomfort caused by an illness can strain a relationship between partners, families and professionals, as well as how understanding feelings of guilt or shame can transform a situation or relationship.

The Social Psychology of Disability

The book gives pride of place to classic as well as contemporary concepts from the social psychology of disability and rehabilitation psychologythat researchers and clinicians can use or adapt for their professional venues. The experience of most people with disabilities is not what nondisabled persons anticipate - contrary to the latter's beliefs and expectations, the former can lead fulland normal lives.  The Social Psychology of Disability is designed to counter stereotypical or biased perspectives aimed at an often overlooked minority group.

Disability, Health, Law, and Bioethics

In this collection, the authors explore the impact that the philosophical framing of disability can have on public policy questions, in the clinic, in the courtroom, and elsewhere. They examine the implications of this understanding for legal and policy approaches to disability, strategies for allocating and accessing health care, the implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, health care rights, and other legal tools designed to address discrimination.

More Print Books

Download the sheet below to see a list of even more print books on Developmental Disability and Accessibility.

 


We accept suggestions for new books to be added to our collection. If there are books related to disability or anything other topic you want to see added to the collection, click the link below to submit a request!

Fiction with Representation

Unbroken

This anthology explores disability in fictional tales told from the viewpoint of disabled characters, written by disabled creators. With stories in various genres about first loves, friendship, war, travel, and more, Unbroken will offer today's teen readers a glimpse into the lives of disabled people in the past, present, and future. Each author identifies as disabled along a physical, mental, or neurodiverse axis--and their characters reflect this diversity.

You're Welcome, Universe

When Julia finds a slur about her best friend scrawled across the back of the Kingston School for the Deaf, she covers it up with a beautiful (albeit illegal) graffiti mural. Her supposed best friend snitches, the principal expels her, and her two mothers set Julia up with a one-way ticket to a "mainstream" school in the suburbs. Out in the 'burbs, Julia paints anywhere she can, eager to claim some turf of her own. She expected her art might get painted over by cops. But she never imagined getting dragged into a full-blown graffiti war.

The Bride Test

Khai Diep has no feelings. He thinks he's defective. When he steadfastly avoids relationships, his mother takes matters into her own hands and returns to Vietnam to find him the perfect bride. As a mixed-race girl living in the slums of Ho Chi Minh City, Esme Tran has always felt out of place. When the opportunity arises to come to America and meet a potential husband, she can't turn it down, thinking this could be the break her family needs. Seducing Khai, however, doesn't go as planned. Esme's lessons in love seem to be working...but only on herself. She's hopelessly smitten with a man who's convinced he can never return her affection.

A Room Called Earth

The debut novel from the inimitable Madeleine Ryan, A Room Called Earth is a humorous and heartwarming adventure inside the mind of a bright and dynamic woman. This hyper-saturated celebration of love and acceptance, from a neurodiverse writer, is a testament to moving through life without fear, and to opening ourselves up to a new way of relating to one another.

A Time to Dance

Veda, a classical dance prodigy in India, lives and breathes dance--so when an accident leaves her a below-knee amputee, her dreams are shattered. For a girl who's grown used to receiving applause for her dance prowess and flexibility, adjusting to a prosthetic leg is painful and humbling. But Veda refuses to let her disability rob her of her dreams, and she starts all over again, taking beginner classes with the youngest dancers. Then Veda meets Govinda. As their relationship deepens, Veda reconnects with the world around her, and begins to discover who she is and what dance truly means to her.

One Two Three

Everyone knows everyone in the tiny town of Bourne, but the Mitchell triplets are especially beloved. Mirabel is the smartest person anyone knows, and no one doubts it just because she can't speak. Monday is the town's purveyor of books now that the library's closed--tell her the book you think you want, and she'll pull the one you actually do from the microwave or her sock drawer. Mab's job is hardest of all: get good grades, get into college, get out of Bourne.

The Witch Elm

Toby is a happy-go-lucky charmer who's dodged a scrape at work and is celebrating with friends when the night takes a turn that will change his life--he surprises two burglars who beat him and leave him for dead. Struggling to recover from his injuries, beginning to understand that he might never be the same man again, he takes refuge at his family's ancestral home to care for his dying uncle Hugo. Then a skull is found in the trunk of an elm tree in the garden--and as detectives close in, Toby is forced to face the possibility that his past may not be what he has always believed.

Turn of Mind

A stunning first novel, both literary and thriller, about a retired orthopedic surgeon with dementia, Turn of Mind has already received worldwide attention. With unmatched patience and a pulsating intensity, Alice LaPlante brings us deep into a brilliant woman's deteriorating mind, where the impossibility of recognizing reality can be both a blessing and a curse. A startling portrait of a disintegrating mind clinging to bits of reality through anger, frustration, shame, and unspeakable loss, Turn of Mind is a remarkable debut that examines the deception and frailty of memory and how it defines our very existence.

Borderline

Just when she's sure the credits have rolled on her life story, Millie gets a second chance with the Arcadia Project: a secret organization that polices the traffic to and from a parallel reality filled with creatures straight out of myth and fairy tales. For her first assignment, Millie is tasked with tracking down a missing movie star who also happens to be a nobleman of the Seelie Court. But stronger forces than just her inner demons are sabotaging her progress, and if she fails to unravel the conspiracy behind the noble's disappearance, the shattering of a centuries-old peace could spark an all-out war between worlds. No pressure.

Sorrowland

Vern--seven months pregnant and desperate to escape the strict religious compound where she was raised--flees for the shelter of the woods. There, she gives birth and plans to raise the twins far from the influence of the outside world. But even in the forest, Vern is a hunted woman. Forced to fight back against the community that refuses to let her go, she unleashes incredible brutality far beyond what a person should be capable of, her body wracked by inexplicable and uncanny changes. To understand her metamorphosis and to protect her small family, Vern has to face the past and the future--outside the woods.

Race the Sands

In this epic standalone fantasy, the acclaimed author of the Queens of Renthia series introduces an imaginative new world in which a pair of strong and determined women risk their lives battling injustice, corruption, and deadly enemies in their quest to become monster racing champions. Life, death, and rebirth—in Becar, who you are in this life will determine your next life. Yet there is hope—you can change your destiny with the choices you make. But for the darkest individuals, there is no redemption: you come back as a kehok, a monster, and are doomed to be a kehok for the rest of time.

Song for a Whale

From fixing the class computer to repairing old radios, twelve-year-old Iris is a tech genius. But she's the only deaf person in her school, so people often treat her like she's not very smart. If you've ever felt like no one was listening to you, then you know how hard that can be. When she learns about Blue 55, a real whale who is unable to speak to other whales, Iris understands how he must feel. Then she has an idea: she should invent a way to "sing" to him! But he's three thousand miles away. How will she play her song for him? 

Six of Crows

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price--and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can't pull it off alone. . . . A convict with a thirst for revenge. A sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager. A runaway with a privileged past. A spy known as the Wraith. A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums. A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes. Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist.

The Oracle Code

After a gunshot leaves her paralyzed below the waist, Barbara Gordon undergoes physical and mental rehabilitation at the Arkham Center for Independence. She must adapt to a new normal, but she cannot shake the feeling that something is dangerously amiss. Strange sounds escape at night while patients start to go missing. Is this suspicion simply a result of her trauma? Or does Barbara actually hear voices coming from the center's labyrinthine hallways? It's up to her to put the pieces together to solve the mysteries behind the walls. 

The Silence Between Us

Deaf teen Maya moves across the country and must attend a hearing school for the first time. As if that wasn't hard enough, she also has to adjust to the hearing culture, which she finds frustrating--and also surprising when some classmates, including Beau Watson, take time to learn ASL. As Maya looks past graduation and focuses on her future dreams, nothing, not even an unexpected romance, will not derail her pursuits. But when people in her life--Deaf and hearing alike--ask her to question parts of her Deaf identity, Maya stands proudly, never giving in to the idea that her Deafness is a disadvantage.

Get a Life, Chloe Brown

Chloe Brown is a chronically ill computer geek with a goal, a plan, and a list. She's come up with seven directives to help her "Get a Life", and she's already completed the first: finally moving out of her family's mansion. She's ready to enjoy a drunken night out, ride a motorcycle, and other adventures. But it's not easy being bad, and Chloe knows just the man to help her complete her list. Redford 'Red' Morgan is a handyman with tattoos, a motorcycle, and sex appeal, who paints at night but hides his work. When she enlists Red to help her rebel, she discovers what really lies beneath his rough exterior.