Reflection of Children's Literature dealing with disabilities

Overall, children can learn a lot about different disabilities from these five books- Ceana has CP, Hi, I’m Ben…And I’ve Got a Secret, Knockin’ On Wood, Private and Confidential, and Keeping Up With Roo. There is not only one type of disability, but also many others that can affect people certain ways. The literature I have shared includes mental disabilities, physical disabilities, visual disabilities, as well as disabilities that people are born with or are later affected by because of an accident they encountered. These books however do not cover the entire subject of disabilities- one being autism that has many different types of this disability as well.

Children will learn not to discriminate against people with disabilities based on their looks, reactions, behaviors, or emotions because the meaning of disability has been discussed in a positive way. The meaning of disability is also a very controversial issue, so it is important for children to use terms properly and efficiently. In order for them to see people with disabilities in a positive way, they need to understand that they are not at a disadvantage or have a deficiency. Instead, people with disabilities are still able to function and live in society, even if they have their disability. My books have proved this because they have family and friends who do the same everyday activities as other people do. Even though some of these books demonstrate hardship, positive results are also recognized because they show that people with different disabilities can overcome their obstacles as well. I also believe that the idea of being “normal” needs to be removed from children’s knowledge because this is where misconceptions and stereotypes come from.

I must say that being an insider myself, I have trouble agreeing with the article, “Claiming Disability- Knowledge and Identity” by Michael Berube. I have used some of the terms such as disabled, physically challenged, and handicap, that are supposedly inappropriate or wrong. I am not sure if I am being biased because I have grown up with these words because my mother used them to explain my sister’s disability. I think that I can see Berube’s argument as well because it does depend on the person who has the disability, the person labeling the type of disability, as well as the situation they are in. I do agree that “retarded” should never be used in any content or speech, however, these other words previously mentioned are still used in recent children’s books, such as the ones I used for these reviews, and I personally do not think that it hinders the teaching of disabilities through the books at all.