Woman in a wheelchair, wearing a yellow shirt and making dinner.

Disability Reads

| Burlington County Library

Different, Not Less: A Neurodivergent’s Guide to Embracing Your True Self and Finding Your Happily Ever After by Chloé Hayden
An actor, social media star and neurodivergence advocate, Chloé Hayden describes how it feels to be neurodivergent and offers insights on how autism and ADHD may present differently in females. She gives advice for living with meltdowns and shutdowns, tips for finding supportive relationships, communities and workplaces, and much more.

Born Extraordinary: Empowering Children with Differences and Disabilities by Meg Zucker
Born with one finger on each hand, shortened forearms and one toe on each misshapen foot caused by a genetic condition called ectrodactyly, Meg Zucker would eventually pass this condition on to her two sons. This book gives parents the tools to meet their children's emotional needs while supporting the whole family. Parents learn how best to empower their children to confront others' assumptions, grow in confidence and encourage dialogue – rather than silence, fear and shame – around difference.

The Beauty of Dusk: On Vision Lost and Found by Frank Bruni
New York Times columnist and bestselling author Bruni offers a biography of self-discovery about his partial loss of vision that left him functionally blind in one eye and in danger of losing the other. It is a story of adjustment to the new reality, and a medical and spiritual journey to navigate a world blurred in one sense. The story is one of perseverance and new discoveries. 

Nolo’s Guide to Social Security Disability: Getting & Keeping your Benefits by David Morton
Written by a doctor who knows how to decipher the medical portion of SSD, this is an essential book for anyone dealing with a long-term or permanent disability. For first-time applicants and existing recipients of Social Security disability, this book demystifies the program and tells you everything you need to know about qualifying and applying for benefits, maintaining benefits, and appealing the denial of a claim.

Deaf Utopia: A Memoir – and a Love Letter to a Way of Life by Nyle DiMarco
Nyle DiMarco is an actor, producer, advocate, model, two-time reality show winner and cultural icon of the international Deaf community. Born in a multi-generational Deaf family, he shares his story of navigating a world built for hearing people. This book is a celebration of deaf culture through the embodied experience of the author.

Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman’s Fight to End Ableism by Elsa Sjunneson
A deafblind writer and professor explores the misrepresentation of disability in books, movies and TV. As a media studies professor, Elsa Sjunneson has seen the full range of blind and deaf portrayals on film, and here she deconstructs their impact. Part memoir, part cultural criticism, part history of the deafblind experience, Being Seen explores how our cultural concept of disability is more myth than fact.

Developing Differently: A Guide for Parents of Young Children with Global Developmental Delay, Intellectual Disability, or Autism by Joshua Muggleton
A clinical psychologist working with children developing differently, the author provides a comprehensive, step-by-step parenting plan to embed good practice at home, which can prevent emotional and behavioral challenges before they arise. The strategies presented are designed to work across all neurodevelopmental conditions. This is a helpful guide to reduce a child’s anxiety, build confidence and help develop learning and communication skills.

Traveling Different: Vacation Strategies for Parents of the Anxious, the Inflexible, and the Neurodiverse by Dawn M. Barclay
This wonderful travel guide for parents of children with autism and/or mood and distraction disorders offers tips to soothe a child’s travel anxieties. The author presents travel strategies, and anecdotes from Certified Autism Travel ProfessionalsTM, parents of special needs children, associations and advocates, and mental health professionals, broken down by mode of transportation and type of venue. A resource guide of travel agents who specialize in special needs travel is also provided.

25 Women who Defied Limitations by Emma Carlson Berne
Berne introduces 25 women whose disabilities did not stand in their way of pursuing and reaching great achievements. Each woman profiled faced challenges because of a disability and achieved excellence in her field, including the arts, sciences, sports and politics.

There Plant Eyes: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness by M. Leona Godin
Godin, who began losing her vision at age 10, shares the history of both the condition of blindness and the myths and ideas that have grown up around it over the course of generations. She combines an analysis of blindness in art and culture (from King Lear to Star Wars) with a study of the science of blindness and key developments in accessibility (the white cane, embossed printing, digital technology) to paint a vivid personal and cultural history.

Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to Be an Ally by Emily Ladau
A disability rights advocate, speaker and writer, the author offers a practical guide for readers to understand disability as part of the human experience, as well as mindful and inclusive language and appropriate etiquette about addressing the disabled. This is a friendly handbook on important disability issues, including how to be an ally.

Stephen Hawking: A Memoir of Friendship and Physics by Leonard Mlodinow
This biography about Stephen Hawking, his life and passions moves from his genius in uncovering the mysteries of the universe; to being a colleague with the ability to communicate six words per minute; to a friend who can convey so much with a smile, frown or a raised eyebrow. This moving account of a friendship offers invaluable lessons from one of physics' greatest practitioners about life, the universe, and the ability to overcome daunting obstacles.

The Hard Parts: A Memoir of Courage and Triumph by Oksana Masters
Left at an orphanage in the Ukraine in the wake of Chernobyl and its aftermath, Masters survived a childhood of abuse till she was rescued by an American professor. In America, she turned to sports as a means to prove herself by winning the world’s best in elite rowing, biathlon, cross-country skiing, and road cycling competitions. Now considered one of the world’s top athletes, she is the recipient of seventeen Paralympic medals, the most of any US athlete of the Winter Games, Paralympic Olympic.

Audience: Adult, Seniors
Category:
Reading Lists