Category Archives: Disability

Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2022 Reviews

 

On January 28, Star Bright Books proudly returned as a bronze sponsor for Multicultural Children’s Book Day! We appreciate the opportunity to participate in this celebration of representation and diverse stories. Multicultural Children’s Book Day, now in its tenth year, aims to connect young readers with multicultural books and expose them to new perspectives. This year, volunteers read and reviewed Books and Bricks: How a School Rebuild the Community, I Have Cerebral Palsy, and The Magic of Clay. We would like to share their amazing words below!*

*Click each link to read the full review.

 

Books and Bricks: How a School Rebuilt the Community

Mindfulece (Twitter: @TheMindfulECE)
“I loved this book for children. It’s wonderful to read out loud. It’s informative and includes a little bit of mystery that keeps the reader engaged. As the story unfolds it’s heartwarming to see the transformation of the main characters from hopeless to hopeful about what a thriving school can do for the community.”

 

Hannah Stere (Goodreads and Amazon)
[This] is an engaging story about a South African community that bands together to create a mutually beneficial relationship in an engaging and thoughtful way. Books and Bricks highlights the importance of a school as a community support system.”

 

Medha Tare (Instagram: @picklebunny_books)
“An inspiring example of #communitybuilding with parallels around the world.

 

I Have Cerebral Palsy

MaryAnne Kofenderfer (Twitter & Instagram: @mamasmiles)
“This book represents beautifully MCBD’s mission to raise awareness of the ongoing need to include kids’ books that celebrate diversity in homes and school bookshelves.”

 

Shenna Bogetti (Instagram: @librarian_shenna)
[I Have Cerebral Palsy] is a great book to help build that world knowledge and help students be comfortable around others that may have cerebral palsy or another type of disability.”

 

Rachana Ramanan (Instagram: @rach_artnmore)
“This book is so beautiful – it blew my mind away – it journeys through the life of Sydney – a day at school, home, her struggle with Cerebral Palsy and makes you realize that she’s just like any other girl with hopes and dreams! As she says, ‘I’m a lot like you, but I do have to do some things differently!’”

 

Bev Baird (Blog and Goodreads)
I thoroughly enjoyed Sydney’s story and would highly recommend it. Thank you, Sydney, for your candor and sweetness.”

 

The Magic of Clay

Leanna Guillén Mora (Blog and Instagram: @craftymomsshare)
“If you have a little art lover in your life – or one that just loves playing with modeling clay! – then they will love The Magic of Clay, a wonderful new picture book from Star Bright Books, a MCBD Bronze sponsor! It is a deep dive into the science and art of clay, including how it is formed and how it can be used to make new creations.” 

 

Kelsey Ray (Twitter: @ReadingRay)
“This book is very enlightening about clay and its properties. I learned so much about the process of creating items from clay in a clear, concrete manner.”

Promoting Inclusive Communication by Unlearning Ableist Language

Language is constantly evolving and adapting. The acceptability of common rhetoric may shift or change as communities come to discover language that best represents their identities or as the origins of words come to light. Harmful terminology regarding people with disabilities is normalized in everyday vocabulary, and advocates are speaking up about it.

 

Much of today’s common language is at risk of perpetuating ableist narratives, often failing to accurately convey one’s message. The inherent ableism in modern language may not always be widely evident, but learning about its impact can help to avoid causing unintentional harm in the future. By teaching kids­­ more inclusive language from a young age, the normalization of ableist language can begin to be dismantled. Encouraging inclusive language can also help children learn word meanings and develop interpersonal communication skills.

 

What is ableism?

 

Ableism is discrimination or prejudice, implicit or explicit, against people with disabilities. Ableism is rooted in the harmful belief that disabled people are inferior to able-bodied people. It can manifest in a variety of ways, including able-bodied actors portraying characters with different abilities, uploading digital photos without alt-text or captions, lacking ramp or elevator access in buildings, and using language, as insults or otherwise, to “other” people with disabilities.

 

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), defines a disability as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment.” With this in mind, the ADA is actually representative of a wide array of people!

 

How does ableism impact language?

 

The range of language that carries ableist connotations is vast, including insults, cliches, descriptors, and reactions. Many words with ableist ties are filler and can be better conveyed with alternative vocabulary choices. Others are words used to negatively classify people with disabilities.

 

For example, words like “crazy,” “stupid,” “insane,” “dumb,” and “psycho” draw on stereotypes that belittle or mock mental illness and impairments. More explicitly, using “OCD” to say you’re highly organized or “depressed” to express sadness—without a diagnosis of either—also serves to downplay the severity of mental illnesses that people manage on a daily basis. Ableism has impacted language by normalizing the co-opting of disability rhetoric by non-disabled people, especially through words that express diagnosis or mockery.

 

Ableism is also responsible for making the very word “disability” taboo, resulting in the normalization of alternate words that serve to make able-bodied people comfortable with the subject of disability rather than prioritizing the comfort of disabled people in their identity. Such alternate words and phrases include “handicapped,” “special needs,” and “differently abled,” to name a few, which are effective in avoiding the legal, medical, and social realities of disability. By dancing around the subject of disability, this rhetoric prioritizes assimilating people with disabilities into an able-bodied-centric society over making society accessible to all.

 

How can parents and children incorporate more inclusive, less ableist language?

 

The most significant step for parents in working toward more inclusive language is to listen to people with disabilities, especially as resources can quickly become outdated. Following disability advocates and reading or watching recent content with children that is created by people with disabilities are also easy ways to engage with the community’s conversations. It’s similarly important to note that people with disabilities may have individual preferences towards terminology, so it’s always best to ask!

 

From Brothers And Sisters, written by Laura Dwight.

 

For instance, there is some debate between the usage of “people with disabilities” and “disabled people.” The former is an effort toward empowerment by choosing to avoid defining people by their disabilities, while the latter is an effort toward reclamation of the word “disability” and a rejection of rhetoric that must remind people of someone’s humanity prior to their disability status.

 

Another rule of thumb is to do your own research! If you suspect a word may have questionable connotations, look into its origin to see if it has been used to inappropriately classify mental or physical impairments.

 

Even though ableism may seem deeply woven into society, there are simple changes you can make to your daily language and instill in your children! Doing so improves communication of meaning and avoids perpetuating stereotyped, belittling, or mocking ableist narratives.

 

  • Instead of “dumb” or “stupid,” try uninformed, uneducated, ignorant, illogical, or nonsensical.
  • Instead of “crazy” or “insane” (meaning intense), try shocking, awesome, amazing, incredible, fascinating, extremely, unpredictable, irrational, or unreasonable.
  • Instead of “crazy” or “insane” (meaning absurd), try outrageous, unacceptable, ridiculous, bizarre, wacky, unbelievable, or unreal.
  • Instead of “psycho,” try dangerous, threatening, unnerving, or chaotic.
  • Instead of “OCD,” try meticulous, precise, focused, detailed or detail-oriented, organized, clean, neat, or picky.
  • Instead of “lame,” try bad, boring, unpleasant, unpleasing, lackluster, insufficient, or inadequate.
  • Instead of “depressed,” try sad, down, blue, upset, or tired.
  • Instead of “blind” (meaning unaware), try ignorant, careless, insensitive, thoughtless, or oblivious.

 

While it may seem daunting to alter your everyday speaking and writing habits, the change will be a positive one for you, those around you, and your children. Navigating ableist language is a nuanced and ever-changing landscape, but the effort to unlearn it will become easier with practice and encourage the natural use of inclusive language by your children who learn through observation. Kids raised by and around people who actively avoid using ableist language will help language become a more inclusive and accessible space for people of all abilities.

 

Using Books to Teach Children Kindness and Acceptance

Image depicts a teacher showing an illustrated book to a group of young students.

Bibliotherapy is usually used to address common childhood and adolescent concepts (Image from Layla’s Head Scarf by Miriam Cohen).

Books entertain, inspire, and educate. But they can even go beyond that. Through a process known as bibliotherapy, books have become useful tools to aid in social and emotional growth for a wide range of people.

 

Bibliotherapy uses different books to aid with different issues, and thus, there are many ways it can be applied. The basics of how bibliotherapy works stay the same, though. Bibliotherapy is composed of three stages: identification (an individual reads a book and relates to a character or situation in the text), catharsis (that person becomes emotionally involved in the text and experiences an emotional release through discussion), and insight (the reader is more aware of their own situation and has gained some new perspective).

 

In academic settings, bibliotherapy is known as developmental bibliotherapy and is usually used to address common childhood and adolescent concepts such as puberty, bodily functions, and developmental milestones. However, bibliotherapy can also be adapted to help children understand a variety of subjects including disabilities.

 

While there is an inherent lack of research on using developmental bibliotherapy to teach children about disabilities, studies have found that bibliotherapeutic instruction can help improve the self-efficacy, feelings, and productivity of children with disabilities. For children without disabilities, bibliotherapy can help create a better understanding of those with disabilities. As a result, a more accepting and inclusive classroom environment can be built.

 

In order to establish an inclusive classroom, two teachers named Ms. Schild and Ms. Stone took part in a 2014 study that analyzed how students in their multiage classes responded to bibliotherapy. The teachers were motivated to try bibliotherapy after realizing how students without disabilities struggled to interact with and respect those who did.

 

Ms. Schild’s class of second and third graders started by reading a book called In Looking after Louis. Through their conversation about Louis’s disability and his behavior, it became clear the children viewed “disabled” and “non-disabled” as rigid categories with set characteristics. However, as the study continued, this outlook started to change.

 

Since the students perceived “disabled” and “non-disabled” so differently, Ms. Schild led a conversation about the meaning of “normal.” Prior to discussion, the class read the books Crow Boy, My Brother Sammy, and Ian’s Walk. After analyzing these works, the students were able to consider the individual differences of the characters in the story, along with differences in how the characters’ disabilities were expressed in each story. This challenged the previous mindset of the class and helped students understand how there are “more fluid boundaries to the definitions of disability and normality.”

 

By the end of the study, the teachers observed a change in how their students with and without disabilities interacted with one another. Students who were once annoyed by their classmates with disabilities became more understanding and respectful of their needs. A few students with disabilities also went through changes during this study. One student who usually did not participate in class discussions felt more inclined to speak up. Seeing himself represented in a book character made it easier for him to voice his opinions since he could look at the character and say, “That’s like me!”

 

While this study can be considered a success, it is admittedly difficult to measure the effectiveness of bibliotherapy. Between a lack of substantial research and the fact that interpretations of literature are highly subjective, results can vary greatly. Because of this, there is no way to guarantee bibliotherapy will prove successful for everyone; however, the worse outcome is that no change occurs. With that in mind, this technique is worth studying in more classroom settings.