"Charming . . . Connolly recounts growing up a scrappy Montana kid—one who happened to be born without legs. . . . an empowering read." —People
Kevin Connolly has been an object of curiosity since the day he was born without legs. Growing up in rural Montana, he was raised like any other kid (except, that is, for his father's MacGyver-like contraptions such as the "butt boot"). As a college student, Kevin traveled to seventeen...

"The seventeen eye-opening essays in Disability Visibility, all written by disabled people, offer keen insight into the complex and rich disability experience, examining life's ableism and inequality, its challenges and losses, and celebrating its wisdom, passion, and joy. The accounts in this collection ask readers to think about disabled people not as individuals who need to be "fixed," but as members of a community with its own history, culture,...

"A young adult adaptation of Alice Wong's Disability Visibility: First Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century"-- According to the last census, one in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some are visible, some are hidden-- but all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. Wong brings together an urgent, galvanizing collection of personal essays by contemporary disabled writers. Inside you will find activists, authors,...

Drawing on a collection of original essays, previously published work, conversations, graphics, photos, commissioned art by disabled and Asian American artists, and more, Alice uses her unique talent to share an impressionistic scrapbook of her life as an Asian American disabled activist, community organizer, media maker, and dreamer. From her love of food and pop culture to her unwavering commitment to dismantling systemic ableism, Alice shares her...

"A leading medical ethnobotanist tells us the story of her quest to develop new ways to fight illness and disease through the healing powers of plants in this uplifting and adventure-filled memoir. Plants are the basis for an array of lifesaving and health-improving medicines we all now take for granted. Ever taken an aspirin? Thank a willow tree for that. What about life-saving medicines for malaria? Some of those are derived from cinchona and wormwood....

Rob Mendez, who was born without limbs, shares his journey to first become independent and then to become a high school football coach in the Bay Area.

"As a child, Matt Hay didn't know his hearing wasn't the way everyone else processed sound--and like a lot of kids who do workarounds to fit in, even the school nurse didn't catch his condition at the annual hearing and vision checks. But as a prospective college student who couldn't pass the entrance requirements for West Point, Hay's condition, generated by a tumor, was unavoidable: his hearing was going, and fast. Soundtrack of Silence was his...

With a voice as disarmingly bold, funny, and unsentimental as its author, a thoroughly unconventional memoir that shatters the myth of the tragic disabled life Harriet McBryde Johnson isn't sure, but she thinks one of her earliest memories was learning that she will die. The message came from a maudlin TV commercial for the Muscular Dystrophy Association that featured a boy who looked a lot like her. Then as now, Johnson tended to draw her own conclusions....

In the summer of 2019, journalist Melissa Blake penned an op-ed for CNN Opinion. A conservative pundit caught wind of it, mentioning Blake's work in a YouTube video. What happened next is equal parts a searing view into society, how we collectively view and treat disabled people, and the making of an advocate. After a troll said that Blake should be banned from posting pictures of herself, she took to Twitter and defiantly posted three smiling selfies,...

Ben Mattlin lives a normal, independent life. Why is that interesting? Because Mattlin was born with spinal muscular atrophy, a congenital weakness from which he was expected to die in childhood. Not only did Mattlin live through childhood, he became one of the first students in a wheelchair to attend Harvard, from which he graduated and became a professional writer. His advantage? Mattlin's life happened to parallel the growth of the disability rights...