Reading Series on Disability for Teachers, Children and Young Adults

I've recently published three books in a Reading Series on Disability for  Teachers, Children and Young Adults.  The stories were originally on my site A Different Light and I've received many requests over the past seven years to use them in classrooms and to put together a collection for use by teachers. These books are also suitable for home schooling and for independent reading. 

The first volume The Power Chair Pole Vaulter for Paluga County is for high school and college students.  The stories range from personal adjustment to acquired disability in Trophies to how society reacts to disability in The Power Chair Pole Vaulter from Paluga County. The fable The Kingdom of If Only raises issues about how rules affect access to technology. The sci-fi story of Hokey Pokey deals with perspective in living with a disability. The Elegant Year is about a teenage girl who has to deal with being away from school after an injury and how her mother helps her. The themes of family and society run through most of the stories and provide ample room for discussion.

The second volume Grandpa's Tree is for elementary, middle and older students.   It contains three short stories about children with disabilities that are suitable for teaching disability awareness and themes of inclusion. Grandpa's Tree deals with how a mother and son deal with his paralysis after a fall; Transcontinental Dissonance imagines a world where wheelchairs are the norm; and First Word War features an elf who helps a boy with dyslexia embrace his need for assistive technology.

The third volume, The Odd Gift is aimed at college students.    The story The Odd Gift explores stereotypes imposed on people with disabilities; Lime and Cake is about a wife's feelings about care giving for her husband who has Alzheimer s; Wait and See deals with a father's reaction to his son's diagnosis of autism; His Parents' House is about a twenty something who moves home after acquiring a disability; and Gravity Sucks deals with how a student with cerebral palsy responds to bullying




If you've used the stories in your classroom, please feel free to leave a review.