Disability Justice: A Reader's Guide: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Realistic Fiction

Sixteen-year-old Scotch struggles to fit in--at home she's the perfect daughter, at school she's provocatively sassy, and thanks to her mixed heritage, she doesn't feel she belongs with the Caribbeans, whites, or blacks. And even more troubling, lately her skin is becoming covered in a sticky black substance that can't be removed. While trying to cope with this creepiness, she goes out with her brother--and he disappears. A mysterious bubble of light just swallows him up, and Scotch has no idea how to find him. Soon, the Chaos that has claimed her brother affects the city at large, until it seems like everyone is turning into crazy creatures. Scotch needs to get to the bottom of this supernatural situation ASAP before the Chaos consumes everything she's ever known--and she knows that the black shadowy entity that's begun trailing her every move is probably not going to help. A blend of fantasy and Caribbean folklore, at its heart this tale is about identity and self-acceptance--because only by acknowledging her imperfections can Scotch hope to save her brother.

Amanda Leduc looks at fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm to Disney, showing us how they influence our expectations and behavior and linking the quest for disability rights to new kinds of stories that celebrate differences. Historically we have associated the disabled body image and disabled life with an unhappy ending. Leduc persuasively illustrates the power of stories to affect reality in this painstakingly researched and provocative study that invites us to consider our favorite folktales from another angle.

An African-American journalist on the verge of breaking a major story and a vampire who has done the unthinkable by falling love with a mortal must face the disastrous consequences of their passion and ambition.

January 29, 2035. That's the day the comet is scheduled to hit--the big one. Denise and her mother and sister, Iris, have been assigned to a temporary shelter outside their hometown of Amsterdam to wait out the blast, but Iris is nowhere to be found, and at the rate Denise's drug addicted mother is going, they'll never reach the shelter in time. A last minute meeting leads them to something better than a temporary shelter--a generation ship, scheduled to leave Earth behind to colonize new worlds after the comet hits. But everyone on the ship has been chosen because of their usefulness. Denise is autistic and fears that she'll never be allowed to stay. Can she obtain a spot before the ship takes flight? What about her mother and sister? When the future of the human race is at stake, whose lives matter most?

Parable of the Sower is the odyssey of one woman who is twice as feeling in a world that has become doubly dehumanized. The time is 2025. The place is California, where small walled communities must protect themselves from hordes of desperate scavengers and roaming bands of Paints, people addicted to a drug that activates an orgasmic desire to burn, rape and murder. When one small community is overrun, Lauren Olamina, an 18 year old black woman, sets off on foot, moving north along the dangerous coastal highways. She is a sharer, one who suffers from a hereditary trait called hyperempathy, which causes her to feel others' pain as well as her own. Parable of the Sower is both a coming of age novel and a road novel, set in the near future, when the dying embers of our old civilization can either cool or be the catalyst for something new.

Often hilarious and always illuminating, Two Ends of Sleep is a quirky account of a 30-something urban lesbian living with Multiple Sclerosis.

This beautiful novel from the author of Marcelo in the Real World about life after a suicide attempt is perfect for fans of All the Bright Places and Thirteen Reasons Why.When Vicky Cruz wakes up in the Lakeview Hospital Mental Disorders ward, she knows one thing: After her suicide attempt, she shouldn't be alive. But then she meets Mona, the live wire; Gabriel, the saint; E.M., always angry; and Dr. Desai, a quiet force. With stories and honesty, kindness and hard work, they push her to reconsider her life before Lakeview, and offer her an acceptance she's never had.But Vicky's newfound peace is as fragile as the roses that grow around the hospital. And when a crisis forces the group to split up, sending Vicky back to the life that drove her to suicide, she must try to find her own courage and strength. She may not have them. She doesn't know.Inspired in part by the author's own experience with depression, The Memory of Light is the rare young adult novel that focuses not on the events leading up to a suicide attempt, but the recovery from one -- about living when life doesn't seem worth it, and how we go on anyway.

Twelve-year-old Lafayette's close relationship with his older brother Charlie changes after Charlie is released from a detention home and blames Lafayette for the death of their mother.

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, where she's treated like an outcast as the only deaf student. The last thing she has left is her art, and not even Banksy himself could convince her to give that up.   Out in the 'burbs, Julia paints anywhere she can, eager to claim some turf of her own. But Julia soon learns that she might not be the only vandal in town. Someone is adding to her tags, making them better, showing off--and showing Julia up in the process. She expected her art might get painted over by cops. But she never imagined getting dragged into a full-blown graffiti war.

When your car is spinning out of control heading for the guard rail, you have all the time in the world. Losing her nerve and burning out fast, hardcore lesbian performance artist Jam has trouble coping with the outside world. Her best friend and former lover, Roz thinks Jam's losing it, big time. Her doctor thinks Prozac is the answer. Meanwhile, Jam finds love, comfort and support from ThisIsCrazy, a talk room on the internet, where she trades messages and shards of hard-bitten wisdom about treatment and withdrawal with the likes of Fruitbat, Junior and D'isMay. Tough, funny and sexy, Prozac Highway packs a sweet punch. Think Tales of the City in cyberspace and click onto this dazzling literary breakthrough.

Padma Venkatraman's inspiring story of a young girl's struggle to regain her passion and find a new peace is told lyrically through verse that captures the beauty and mystery of India and the ancient bharatanatyam dance form. This is a stunning novel about spiritual awakening, the power of art, and above all, the courage and resilience of the human spirit.   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, a young man who approaches dance as a spiritual pursuit. 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.