Disabilities Books

I highly recomed this for any veteran and most especially disabled vets.
Alot of the things "they" don't tell you about.

An excellent guide to the basics, Yeomans' "The Able Gardener" caters to gardeners with physical limitations. Yeomans offers tips for garden accessibility, easy care gardens, a review of tools (commercial and homemade), safe gardening techniques and strengthening exercises. Yeomans draws on her 15 years experience as a nurse and includes anecdotal advice from gardening patients.

Chapters - sowing seeds, mulching, composting, transplanting and container gardening - offer useful advice for every gardener, including highlighted summary tips. A final section details 20 special gardens, including a sit-down garden, a hummingbird garden, and a touch garden.

I had the good fortune of reading this book when it was first published and still consider it one of the best children's books ever on understanding disabilities and the people who have them.
This is a picture book, a children's book and a guidebook for parents, all in one. The story focuses on the building of a friendship between two young boys, one with and one without a disability. I actually purchased several copies of "About Handicaps" and shared them with friends and neighbors. Later, when I became a Disability Awareness Specialist, I used this book in an awareness program for third graders to help them become more understanding of their classmates who had a disability. This is a book that will educate your head and touch your heart. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Even though World War II has come to an end, little has changed in Berlin. While the Swastika has been replaced by the Hammer and Sickle, and soldiers by secret police, life of oppression and fear remains.

When Mady Schumacher learns of the location of the six disabled orphans her now deceased husband, Josef, had cared for, Mady and a long-time friend, Konlon, dream up an elaborate plan to break the kids out of the mental institution they have been placed in. After they rescue the children, they hope to smuggle them over the Berlin Wall and eventually take them to America. Unfortunately, before they can even get the kids out the institution, things start to go wrong. Will what follows be a blessing or a curse?

ABOVE ALL EARTHLY POWERS is a heart wrenching story about the struggles which residents of East Berlin faced behind the Berlin Wall. The characters in the story are very well developed, instantly drawing the reader in. You become acquainted and fall in love with blind `Tomcat' and follow him around as he is able to escape the mental institution and find his friends, tell them where he and the other five have been hidden, and then his return back to the institution to wait for `the rescue'.

Even though ABOVE ALL EARTHLY POWERS is book three in the Songs of the Night series, it easily stands alone. Readers might want to pick up the first two books While Mortals Sleep and His Watchful Eye just to find out what happened prior to this story though. While the Berlin Wall was in existence since before I was born, I do remember the day it came down. In Grand Rapids, Michigan, they have a portion of the wall on display, and it was awesome to be able to touch a huge piece of history like that. Having experienced the sheer magnitude of the `small piece' of the wall that the museum had, it had to be a daunting job to dream up escape attempts and then try to carry them out with armed guards ready to shoot without warning.

--- reviewed for Christian Bookshelf by Laura V. Hilton

Maggie Thayer, in The Absolut, Ultimate End by Julia First, is excited about the new school year and the extracurricular activities available to her. But there is one problem; to save tax dollars for the Oakdale schools, some or maybe all extracurricular activities will be cut. Maggie and her best friend, Eloise are worried about their scholl lives if the programs are cut. Something must be done. . . One of the problems Maggie has with the cuts is that her crush, Stevie Garber, is in Dramatics Club. To be near him, Maggie signs up for tryouts. She hope that if she makes the club that the club will not be taken away. Maggie's best friend, Eloise, is into sports. She plays every sprot she can. She is desperate , as is everyone else, for the cuts not to take place. Another problem that occurs is that Maggie doesn't expect. She is forced to help a disabled person. She is agianst it at first, but once she meets her new companion, Doreen, they develop a close relationship. They find out theat the program they're doing may be closed. Their friendship develpoed through it, and they don't want it to close. If it is closed, Doreen would have to go back to a school for the blind, which she doesn't want. Perhaps the biggest problem of the whole story is that Maggie's dad is runnung for school board. He is for cutting extra activities. Maggie and Eloise were excited at first, but when they found out that Maggie's dad wasn't on their side, they went clueless. Something had to be done fpr the Oakdale Junior High students, and by the students before the absolute, ultimate end. . . This book gave me a good sense of team work. Team work is what it takes to accomplish unthinkable feats. Any thats why I gave this book five stars. Team work and leadership, as displayed by Maggie, lead her to success, which is the most important accomplishment of all.

This book contains plenty of examples related to the authors standpoint on Universal Design. While most books on Universal Design are about the accessibility in the space, this books is dealing with lot about the things. On top of everything, the authors use easy, straightforward vocabulary, so the book is helpful not only for the experts but novices, too. Strongly recommend to the students who study universal design as well as design professionals who actually perform their ability to designing 'something for the world'

AccessAbility: A Manual For Churches is a step-by-step guidebook for congregations wanting to make their building architecturally accessible. The authors also believe that architectural accessibility is only the first step. The book includes many tips for incorporating people with disabilities into the life of the congregation. There are essays from people with disabilities describing their experiences. The book concludes with a large section of helpful resources and each chapter has resources specific to the given topic. The project was funded by the Episcopal Church. One of the authors is an Episcopal deacon and the other is a Catholic who directs disability ministry in her archdiocese. The book is applicable to any congregation wishing to be inclusive. Highly Recommended.

For those of us who aren't able to trek up tough mountain trails...this book guides us through the trails that go to some beautiful spots in the backcountry...but that you can still take a wheelchair. The book includes detailed descriptions of the trails, and directions how to get there...And they've checked for things like the width of the trail and how steep---and have rated them by how easy it would be to get a wheelchair up them. A really valuable book---and the other cool thing is that this book has raised awareness and committment for the Forest Service to keep up the wheelchair accessible trails.

I have been hunting for an inexpensive guidebook to use with my methods and materials in special education class. I have students teaching everything from pre-k through 22 year olds covering every topic from life skills, to traditional academics, to art. This means that a traditional textbook doesn't do me much good. However the others I looked at were too general to help. Then I found Accessing. Just reading made me exclaim in agreement. I like the format, the content and language used. So far my students have given it a thumbs up too- both for price, size and content.

This book provides realistic insight into the life of a parent with a child with autism. It also allows anyone facing a major life challenge to find comfort in what the author is willing to share. The book flows nicely and makes for an easy and enjoyable read!