Disabilities Books

Sharon Rae North takes readers on an exciting journey through rhyme, reason and heart. The characters of the book are from different cultures and don't have anything in common, right down to their legs. Instead of embracing the thought of having lost a leg and living with an artificial one, the main character shows the true meaning of "playing the hand you've been dealt."

Having been afflicted by sickness is often disheartening and frustrating. Through this story, the life of a little girl has been shaped and molded to share with others the value of accepting yourself. MY BRAND NEW LEG is a great juvenile rendition of believing in yourself. Another plus: it comes with a CD-ROM, allowing readers to exercise their technology skills as well.

Written with sincere detail and beautiful illustrations, Sharon Rae North has taken an ordinary barrier of childhood affliction and crafted a bridge of friendship, trust and bravery.

Reviewed by T. Belinda Williams
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

My Brand New Leg is an excellent way of introducing children 9-12 to differently enabled individuals. Wonderfully illustrated, the characters are introduced to a girl who has a prosthetic leg and can do everything her newfound friends can do. While nameless and colorless, the main character gracefully shares her abilities with others and never once expresses a difference. As she encounters new activities, her friends see that she is no different. The moral of the story is aptly suited to readers of all ages.

I haven't read one Hank Zipzer book I didn't love! And my son and I have read all of the them. This one is fun and shows lots of compassion and also made me laugh!

The entire series of Hank Zipzer books is GREAT!!! My son can't get enough of them. They are a wonderful read, especially for any child who suffers from a learning challenge. They are easy to relate to and help to build self-esteem for children who have learning challenges and help others to understand how the world works for them. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Useful book from a unique perspective
This book is from the perspective of young adults who grew up with NLD. It is very hopeful and very helpful. You will learn how NLD children actually experience the world, as stated in their own voices. Parents, teachers, therapists, and friends will learn how they can be most helpful to the NLD child/adult and how to avoid the frustrations commonly associated with these interactions and relationships. NLDers will identify with much of the content and will learn practical methods and tools for managing their world and their daily lives. It is informative, compassionate, useful and appropriate for everyone associated in any way with an NLD child/adult, including and especially the NLD child/adult him/herself.

This is a terrific read for parents and teachers of children with NLD, as well as teens and young adults with NLD. It is extremely well written, by a young man who has come to terms with his own NLD, in part by interviewing many others about their experiences growing up with this syndrome. The book is intelligent, honest, and compassionate, well organized, and informative without getting bogged down in too much detail. Best of all, it has a healthy sense of humor about some of the awkward (sometimes absurd, sometimes poignant) situations that are so mystifying to "neurotypicals," which are presented in contributed anecdotes that will resonate with families living with a person in their midst with NLD. If you've raised a child with NLD, you'll find yourself at times laughing out loud and shaking your head in disbelief at some of the vignettes, because they sound so eerily familiar.

Although some of the earliest material that was published on NLD warned that as an NLD child grows up the social/emotional burdens only become more complex, this book demonstrates that in many cases the challenges associated with NLD may actually become less burdensome as kids mature into young adults. This seems to be due to a combination of the eventual maturation of some of the responsible neurological factors, the acquisition of work-around strategies, and the growth in self-confidence that comes from understanding and accepting one's weaknesses.

Murphy acknowledges the academic frustrations and social/vocational challenges of growing up with NLD, but this book and his own example (he's working on a graduate degree now) provide encouragement by showing that self-esteem and social competence can blossom as these young people come of age. While the "wiring" in the brain of a person with NLD may never quite evolve into what is considered mainstream, Murphy has seen his own challenges diminish as a young adult, and many of the young adults interviewed in his book confirm the same.

If parents can get their older children with NLD to read this book, it will be an excellent catalyst for an open discussion with them about some of their earlier and ongoing struggles as well as the progress they've made in the larger (non-NLD) world.

Thanks so much for getting me the book in New condition, just as described. I would recommend your services to anyone. Thanks for a great book and more importantly; Great Customer Service!
Carpe Diem!

JL

Finally! A guide to self-employment written specifically for people with disabilities and the family members, friends, agencies and organizations that support them! No More Job Interviews! debunks the myths that suggest that people with disabilities are not suitable candidates for self-employment.

Self-employment has historically been overlooked and misunderstood by professionals who provide employment assistance to people with disabilities. As a result, self-employment has been largely utilized only as an option of last resort. Author Alice Doyel takes this issue head-on.

A successful entrepreneur with disabilities herself, Doyel is living proof that people with disabilities can and do succeed in business. Over the past sixteen years, she has weathered the ups and downs of business ownership-from expansion to closure to starting over-all while balancing health concerns and family responsibilities.

Doyel's appetite for business led her to seek out a book on entrepreneurship for people with disabilities. When she found that no such book existed, she decided to write one herself. In her own words, "I felt that I could put together information that would help other people with disabilities succeed because I knew the types of information that I wanted and needed as an entrepreneur with disabilities."

Doyel's "been there, done that" perspective makes No More Job Interviews! a uniquely powerful resource for entrepreneurs with disabilities. Each chapter contains a wealth of information and resources for potential entrepreneurs-some of which is specifically geared to people with disabilities and some of which would be of value to any budding entrepreneur.

No More Job Interviews! acknowledges the important role that employment and human services professionals often play in the lives of people with disabilities, and prescribes a role for them in supporting self-employment as a viable vocational option. Doyel gives employment professionals a basic business "tool-kit" for helping people with disabilities make the dream of business ownership a reality.

Doyel's book does a superb job of addressing the distinct challenges faced by entrepreneurs with disabilities. Practical suggestions help potential entrepreneurs address real-world challenges of disability and business ownership while minimizing their effects on business success. No More Job Interviews! is essential reading for anyone with a disability who is considering entrepreneurship, and for the family members, friends, and professionals who are committed to helping them achieve their goal.

Officer Cronin's story is, by turns, inspriational and horrifying. The writing is surely supra-saline. The descriptions of conditions and life on Chicago's West Side are so realistic, one wishes this were a work of fiction. Alas, it is all too true, God help us.
Recommendation: Buy it if you can. Read it if you dare.

What a Book! It shows the seamy underbelly of the City. Reading This book made me wonder how we can ever break the cycle of drugs and the lifestyle that goes with that that is perpetuated from generation to generation. I think of the little kids sitting on a urine soaked mattress in a "smoke house" watching their parents smoke and/or sell crack and the bigger kids being lookouts for $100.00 a day. No wonder they don't want to go to school. I don't know what the answer is and there is no answer in the book. This is a social workers nightmare. It reminds me of Dante's Inferno where at the entrance into Hell it says "Abandon Hope All ye Who Enter Here". How do they break out? I don't think they want to break out. They are captives of their habit.
Policemen like Cronin can only keep the problem from spilling over into other communities but can never stop what is going on in this community.
It is a picture of a subculture that most of us will never visit. It makes me feel there is no solution for this problem.

Set in South Africa in the desert, this lovely and familiar story of a child who has difficulty reading, is an enjoyable read with a message. The language and artwork are gentle and flowing, the message to keep trying and to be kind to others who are struggling, is predictable but important. It was an excellent bedtime read for my children who are 6 and 9 years old, we will buy it (it is on loan from the library).

I teach a children's literature class at a state university and a student shared this in class today. I was so moved by her retelling of the story and knew I must have it in my collection. Students who are struggling with reading will identify with the feelings of the main character and the relationship between the child and grandmother is magical. It reminds me of another must-have book, Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco.

Birch Bayh's account of the 25th amendment offers two valuable civics lessons: 1. The shortcomings of existing presidential succession law. 2. How a bill becomes a law, or in this case, a Constitutional amendment.

The nation's presidential succession laws still have plenty of shortcomings, but Senator Birch Bayh helped solve many of them when he shepherded the 25th amendment to passage. The amendment acknowledged modern threats by ensuring a mechanism exists to avoid having a disabled president as commander-in-chief, as existed under Woodrow Wilson and James Garfield. It also lessens the chance that the presidential succession statute ever being needed. The current 1947 law provides for the Speaker of the House, Senate President Pro Tempore, and Cabinet members to succeed to the presidency if there is a dual vacancy (no president or vice president). The 25th amendment's vice presidential succession provisions, twice used already, make that unlikely to occur.

The book also tells a lot about how a bill becomes a law. Reading it forty years after its release, I felt a sense of loss. Although not perfect, there was a great degree of deliberation, bipartisanship, and progress associated with this amendment that seems missing from Washington today. It was not all sunshine and roses. Birch Bayh's testimony before a House committee will bring knowing sighs by anyone who has seen that body attempt to legislate. But overall, there was though, compromise, and ultimate success. Nowadays, it seems like problems are not solved until they are crises. Thankfully, the issues Bayh tackled were not crises when they were solved. One reason my view may be so nice is the complete lack of any lobbyist interest in the issue. The only interested outside party was the American Bar Association, and their input was constructive and not self serving.

Overall, a great book on the topic of presidential succession and our legislative process.

Few living Americans can claim credit for the Constitution in the way that Birch Bayh can. Bayh, then a first-term senator from Indiana, chaired the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments at the time of President Kennedy's assassination. Vice President Johnson's succession to the Presidency left a vacancy in the vice presidency--a situation that had occurred after the other seven vice-presidential successions, but that was suddenly far less acceptable in the nuclear era, with a Cold War on. The crisis was exacerbated because the next two successors in line for the Presidency were 71-year-old House Speaker John McCormack and 86-year-old Senate President pro tem Carl Hayden, who had been chosen for reasons other than their fitness as Presidential successors.

The crisis was solved (up to a point, at least) by the twenty-fifth amendment, which was proposed in 1965 and ratified in 1967. "One Heartbeat Away" tells the story of the amendment's drafting, proposal, and ratification, which Senator Bayh presided over and shepherded. This book offers a rare insight, practically unique in modern times, into successfully resolving a structural dilemma of modern government by means of amending the Constitution. Presidents Eisenhower and Johnson, who were both very engaged in the issues and the process, contributed prefaces.

If you are interested in the twenty-fifth amendment and its legislative history, I also recommend "The 25th Amendment" by John D. Feerick. If you are interested in Presidential succession and disability generally, I recommend "Presidential Succession" by Ruth C. Silva and "From Failing Hands" by John D. Feerick.

Adam Hildebrand is a personal friend and his book "One Person at a Time" reflects his warmth and compassion. Adam challenges anyone willing to listen to take up the mantle of a citizen advocate for people with disabilities. He challenges us to look beyond labels and stereotypes and to build genuine relationships. I recall my own experience "patterning" a young girl named "Abby" who had been disabled in infancy by a stroke. It did not take long to become a permanent part of her cheering section.

The bottom line is to cherish all human life from the womb to the tomb. That is Adam's great passion and he challenges us to join him on a journey toward the heart of the Creator. Because of sin, all of us have anti-life nooks and crannies in our attitudes. I recall Adam's presentation about the subtleties of anti-life code language and how it invades our lives. In "One Person at a Time," he underscores that point with sobering vignettes about people who were either directly killed or put at risk because their "quality of life" did not measure up.

"One Person at a Time" also relates many success stories in which the socially-devalued person finally gains a friend who can show unconditional love. Even the partial success story of Walter and Barry offers hope, because a human life that remains dismal is still a life of inestimable value. There are no "throw-away" people, and a life beset with great suffering has a redemptive quality about it. As long as there is life, there is hope. With grace and passion, my friend Adam helps us to better understand this. Rev. Dennis J. Mercieri

Citizen advocacy is a community enterprise which arranges relationships between competent citizens and those socially devalued because of a physical or mental impairment, and Adam Hildebrand's One Person At A Time explores the benefits of this approach. Accounts of Citizen Advocacy relationships are told by advocates and describe the ups and downs of their experiences.

I believe that I was Stephen's teacher when he was 14. I am not sure if "This Property is condemned" means anything to him..but would certainly like to touch base with him again. carole (brown) nelson cnelson@pyramax.com

This small book contains the lyrics for "Out There" from Disney's THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME accompanied by illustrations and artwork from the film. Some of the pictures are spectacular. Even though I hated what Disney did to the story of Quasimodo and company, I did enjoy the movie and I love the music from the film. "Out There" is one of my favorite two songs from that movie and I am glad to own a copy of this small book. This is a great present for any fan of Disney's HUNCHBACK, any Disney freak, or a book to read to children.

Dr. Pueschel is well known as an advocate for people with Down syndrome, a leading expert in the field, and a father of a child with Down syndrome. A noted speaker at Down syndrome conferences across the country, Dr. Pueschel has revised his popular book with the latest information. The book covers a range of topics from prenatal diagnosis to stimulating your child's gross motor, fine motor and speech skills to pre-school to adolesence and on to adulthood. It also covers vital information about the most current legislation including IDEA 1997. This is one of the books that should be on every new parent's bookshelf.

New parents should be aware of Siegmund Pueschel's reputation in the community of families affected by Down syndrome. As both a doctor and father of a child with Down syndrome this book is a compassionate, accurate, and thorough introduction to Down syndrome for the new parent. It is among the first 5 books I acquired when my son was born and remains one that I look back to and appreciate for its quality.