Social Disabilities

While most people were preparing for the adventure of adult life, Chad E. Foster was watching the world he grew up with fade to black. But that didn’t stop him from becoming the first blind person to graduate from the Harvard Business School leadership program and climbing the corporate ladder as a successful finance/sales executive. With determination, ambition, and drive, Chad created what Oracle said would be impossible. He gave millions of people the ability to earn a living by becoming the first to create customer relationship software for the visually impaired.

Learn about children who are blind, their challenges and adaptations, and their similarities with others.

In 1997, Daniel Trush, a bright, active, outgoing twelve-year-old, collapsed on the basketball court and fell into a deep coma. Rushed to the hospital, he was found to have five previously undetected aneurysms in his brain. One had burst, causing a massive cerebral hemorrhage. While Daniel remained comatose, the uncontrolled pressure inside his skull caused him to suffer multiple strokes.

Behind our current caregiving crisis, in which a broken system has left parents and caregivers exhausted, sits a fierce addiction to independence. But what would happen if we started to appreciate dependency, and the deep meaning of one person caring for another? If we start to care about care? With a curiosity and desire to understand more fully one of humanity’s most profound and essential relationships, journalist Elissa Strauss she interrogates our societal obsession with going it alone and poses a challenge to let ourselves be transformed by the act of caregiving.

With its practical advice and compassionate tone, The Myth of Laziness shows parents how to nurture their child's strengths and improve their classroom productivity. Most important, it shows how correcting these problems in childhood will help children live a fulfilling and productive adult life.

Thirty-four-year-old Rebecca Alexander is a psychotherapist, a spin instructor, a volunteer, and an athlete. She is also almost completely blind, with significantly deteriorated hearing. Not Fade Away is a deeply moving exploration of the obstacles we all face-physical, psychological, and philosophical. Rebecca's story is an exquisite reminder to live each day to its fullest.

In this follow up to the #1 New York Times bestseller I Funny, middle schooler Jamie Grimm has big dreams of being the best stand-up comic in the world—and he won't let the fact that he's wheelchair-bound stand in his way. After winning the New York state finals in the Planet's Funniest Kid Comic Contest, Jamie's off to Boston to compete in the national semi-finals.

Fairy tales shape how we see the world, so what happens when you identify more with the Beast than Beauty? Amanda Leduc looks at fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm to Disney, showing us how they influence our expectations and behaviour and linking the quest for disability rights to new kinds of stories that celebrate difference.

My friend Zack has a disability called autism. But that doesn’t matter to us. We talk about airplanes, build models, and enjoy hanging out at each other’s house. I’m glad Zack is my friend!

Sally Hobart Alexander continues the story of her journey into blindness in this uplifting tale of a life rebuilt and love renewed. Suzanne Toren’s perceptive narration perfectly expresses the emotions of Sally’s sometimes fun, often arduous, and always interesting journey. Also available is Taking Hold, My Journey Into Blindness, which tells the first half of Sally’s story.

As director of legendary Pommery Champagnes, Philippe Pozzo di Borgo was not generally someone in the habit of asking for help. Then, in 1993, an accident left him a quadriplegic. Passing his days hidden in his Paris townhouse, Philippe found himself the modern equivalent of an “untouchable.” The only person who seemed not to be bothered by Philippe’s condition was someone who had been marginalized his entire life - Abdel, the unemployed, uninhibited immigrant from the outskirts of society who would become Philippe’s caretaker.

Thirteen-year-old Nat Beacon loves a lot of things: her dog Warbucks, her best friend Chloe, and competing on her wheelchair racing team, the Zoomers, to name a few. But there's one thing she's absolutely obsessed with: musicals! From Hamilton to Les Mis, there's not a cast album she hasn't memorized and belted along to. She's never actually been in a musical though, or even seen an actor who uses a wheelchair for mobility on stage. Would someone like Nat ever get cast?

Jamie Grimm has finally accomplished his dream of proving himself the Planet's Funniest Kid Comic, and the sky's the limit from there. Enter a couple of TV executives with a huge plan for Jamie: a new show about Jamie and his oddball friends! But when Jamie struggles to learn the acting ropes, will it be an early curtain call for the biggest show of the decade?

How I Became a Human Being is Mark O'Brien’s account of his struggles to lead an independent life despite a lifelong disability. In 1955 he contracted polio and became permanently paralyzed from the neck down. O'Brien describes growing up without the use of his limbs, his adolescence struggling with physical rehabilitation and suffering the bureaucracy of hospitals and institutions, and his adult life as an independent student and writer. Despite his physical limitations, O'Brien crafts a narrative that is as rich and vivid as the life he led.

It's 1950 and Mickey Tussler - the now-famous pitching prodigy with autism and a golden arm - is back for another baseball season in this third installment of Frank Nappi's critically acclaimed Legend of Mickey Tussler series. Talk of Mickey's legendary exploits on the field has grown since his improbable debut two years prior, as have the fortunes of Murph and the rest of the lovable ragtag Brew Crew. Now Mickey, Murph, and Lester find themselves heading to Bean Town to play for the Boston Braves.

It’s 1949 and 18-year-old pitching phenom Mickey Tussler is back with the rejuvenated minor league Brewers in the sequel to The Legend of Mickey Tussler (the basis for the television movie A Mile in His Shoes). Despite Mickey’s proclamation that he will never play baseball again after last season’s violent conclusion, his manager - and now surrogate father - Arthur Murphy cajoles the emotionally fragile, socially awkward boy with autism into giving it another shot.

Learn about children who are blind, their challenges and adaptations, and their similarities with others.

In Disability Pride, disabled journalist Ben Mattlin weaves together interviews and reportage to introduce a cavalcade of individuals, ideas, and events in engaging, fast-paced prose. He traces the generation that came of age after the ADA reshaped America, and how it is influencing the future. He documents how autistic self-advocacy and the neurodiversity movement upended views of those whose brains work differently. He lifts the veil on a thriving disability culture showing how the politics of beauty for those with marginalized body types and facial features is sparking widespread change.

David Paterson overcame severe disability and racial prejudice to become a state senator, lieutenant governor, and - unexpectedly - governor of New York. Paterson was the first and only blind governor - other than a man who held the title for 11 days in 1975 - and the fourth person of African descent to hold the office of governor in American history. Paterson may also be the only governor in history to have been arrested outside the governor's office prior to his service.

Ione Gamble never imagined that entering adulthood would mean being diagnosed with an incurable illness. Watching identity politics become social media fodder from the confines of her sickbed Ione began to pick apart our obsession with self-care, personal branding, productivity and #LivingYourBestLife. Using her experience with disability to cast a fresh gaze on the particularly peculiar cultural moment in which young women find themselves, Poor Little Sick Girls explores the pressures faced—as well as the power of existing as an unacceptable woman in our current era of empowerment.