Showing titles in People with Disabilities

This inspiring autobiography by Helen Keller is an account of her life from her family history up to her last years of college, supplemented by her personal letters from age 7 to 21. This edition includes letters and reports contributed by her teacher, Anne Sullivan, and the editor, John Albert Macy.

This intimate memoir reveals the woman inside one of autism’s most prominent figures, Jennifer O'Toole. At the age of 35, Jennifer was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, and for the first time in her life, things made sense. Now, she exposes the constant struggle between carefully crafted persona and authentic existence, editing the autism script with wit, candor, passion, and power. Her journey is one of reverse-self-discovery not only as an Aspie but - more importantly - as a thoroughly modern woman.

Born with severe brain defects, Suzy was sentenced to a life of “nevers.” With the unwavering support of her mother, Jane, and extended family, Suzy’s miraculous journey has given many experts reason to question the medical textbooks that have been written. From predictions that she would never walk, talk, or function in society, Suzy overcame all these obstacles with determination and perseverance—not even allowing final-stage renal failure at the age of twenty-four to deter her.

Abigail Heringer made her television debut as an instant fan-favorite on season 25 of The Bachelor. Stepping out of the limousine, she approached her bachelor with a playful declaration: she would be staring at his lips all night for two compelling reasons—her profound deafness since birth, and because he had some nice lips! But Abigail’s journey wasn’t always marked by such confidence. Growing up deaf and introverted, she dreaded being the center of attention, fearing her disability would burden those around her.

This groundbreaking memoir offers a glimpse into an activist's journey to finding and cultivating community and the continued fight for disability justice, from the founder and director of the Disability Visibility Project.

Find Another Dream, written and performed by Maysoon Zayid, is the true story of how a Muslim Jersey girl with cerebral palsy creates her own path to stardom. The daughter of Palestinian immigrants, as a child she dreamed of one day dancing on Broadway. As a teen, a bubble-bursting choreographer told her to “find another dream”, so she set her sights on becoming a soap star, undeterred by the fact that the odds were against her.

Former high school teacher and New York-based comedian Mimi Hayes is a brain injury survivor. She wrote her first humorous memoir while recovering from a traumatic head injury at the age of 22. Her honest take on trauma and love followed her to the stage as a stand-up comedian, where she has performed on stages such as Denver Comedy Works, Broadway Comedy Club, Stand Up NY, Dangerfield's, and The Upright Citizen's Brigade. 

If you grow up in a world where wrinkles are practically illegal, going bald is cause for a mental breakdown, and women over size zero are encouraged to shoot themselves (immediately), what the hell do you do if you're, gasp... disabled? Whatever body you’re born into, the pressure to be normal is everywhere. But have you ever met a normal person? What do they look like? Where do they live? What do they eat for breakfast? And what the **** does normal mean anyway?

Hiroshima was one of the great tragedies of WWII. But out of the devastation of the first atomic bomb, some survivors emerged, 25 courageous Japanese women who became part of a remarkable humanitarian epic. Victims of the atomic blast that ushered in the Nuclear Age, these women were brought to the United States in 1955, where they underwent reconstructive surgery to repair the ravages of the bomb. Schoolgirls when the bomb destroyed their futures, they began to remake their lives and re-create themselves. This is the compassionate, often bittersweet chronicle of the Hiroshima Maidens.

Close your eyes and get ready to see the world in a new and more positive way. As a child in Toronto, Molly Burke was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa and became completely sightless as a teenager. Now an award-winning YouTube star and global influencer, Molly shares what it’s like to be a purple-haired, pink-obsessed fashion and makeup lover in a seeing world. She speaks with authenticity and candor about how she tackles the preconceived notions we have around blindness; Molly has made it her mission to make us see her - and ourselves- in a wholly empowering way.  

“At the beginning I was only a little mass of possibilities. It was my teacher who unfolded and developed them.” The Story of My Life, Helen Keller’s autobiography, is the story of that unfolding. It is the story of how, with Anne Sullivan as her guide, Keller developed from “a mass of possibilities” to become one of the most beloved and admired women in American history. With intelligence, humor and wisdom, Keller describes her passage, “from darkness into light, from isolation to friendship, companionship, knowledge, love.”

Blinded at age three, Mike May defied expectations by breaking world records in downhill speed skiing, joining the CIA, and becoming a successful inventor, entrepreneur, and family man. He had never yearned for vision. Then, in 1999, a chance encounter brought startling news: a revolutionary stem-cell transplant surgery could restore May's vision.

Ambition to succeed was inborn before the days of sight-saving classes and the many provisions now available. This book is her achievement. Her ambition was to teach teachers.

With evocative storytelling and incisive research, Katie Rose Guest Pryal brings a new eye to the mental health crisis that higher education has faced for decades. Written from the perspective of a bipolar-autistic professor, A Light in the Tower is both a bracing account of the mental health crisis in higher education and a passionate and informed proposal for how to teach with mental health in mind. Pryal contends that higher education's mental health crisis is the result of long-term systemic problems in education that demand nothing short of a revolution.

Blind Vision is a fascinating account of a unique and inspiring career in open-water swimming. But more than that, it is a story for anyone that’s ever been told they can’t. James Pittar is living proof that no matter what the odds, with dedication, passion, and the right people around you, you can.

Look at It This Way answers questions we all may have been reluctant to ask, it gives us a glimpse into what blind people experience living in a sighted world, and it breaks through barriers that may cause people to think that differences equate to superiority or inferiority.

There Plant Eyes probes the ways in which blindness has shaped our ocularcentric culture, challenging deeply ingrained ideas about what it means to be “blind”. For millennia, blind­ness has been used to signify such things as thoughtlessness (“blind faith”), irrationality (“blind rage”), and unconsciousness (“blind evolution”). But at the same time, blind people have been othered as the recipients of special powers as compensation for lost sight (from the poetic gifts of John Milton to the heightened senses of the comic book hero Daredevil).

Living in the Belgian Congo with her husband in the 1960s, Fran’s mother became pregnant with a daughter. However, right after she gave birth in the hospital, she felt strange. Unbeknownst to anyone, another daughter was on the way, but before anybody responded, an hour had passed. Because of the delay, Fran was born with cerebral palsy. Growing up with her siblings in Africa, Fran always felt different. When everyone else was playing and having fun, she would watch and wish she could join in.

Cassy is the first of her generation born into a Christian Lebanese family after they emigrated to Australia, and she was set to be the golden grandchild. But when it was discovered that she had cerebral palsy, the promise of her wonderful future vanished, and a veil of shame descended. Now an embarrassment to the family, Cassy was hidden away from the community, just tolerated at home, and told she was an embarrassment, useless and would have no future.

Being blind, Debby has had many of those experiences, as a parent, counselor, grandparent and someone who simply loves life. Her faith in a God who loves us shifts that frightening scenario into one of confidence and peace. In this book, through stories and poetry, she describes some of those moments where she has walked by faith, not by sight, both spiritually and literally.