Celebrating Disabilities and Differences

Have you been participating in the Year-Round Adult Reading Challenge? If so, then you know last month's theme was to read a memoir by an author with a chronic illness or disability. There are few ways better than a book to learn about someone else's experiences in their own words. Even though it's August now (and the new challenge theme is to read a book set in the Midwest), here are some recommendations from our shelves that fit the July theme. It's never the wrong time to enjoy a good memoir!

• Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body, by Rebekah Taussig
• The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, by Elisabeth Tova Bailey
• The Tiger and the Cage: A Memoir of a Body in Crisis, by Emma Bolden
• Broken (in the best possible way), by Jenny Lawson
• Strangers Assume My Girlfriend is My Nurse, by Shane Burcaw
• Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century, edited by Alice Wong

Looking for something more active in the building? Upstairs in the Children's Department, you can participate in a Celebrating Differences Scavenger Hunt through August. Featured books will highlight notable figures like autism and animal behavior author and speaker, Temple Grandin; disability rights activist, Judith Heumann; author and activist living with Spinal Muscular Atrophy, Shane Burcaw; and more. There is also a display of books and community resources. The scavenger hunt is geared to ages 5-12, but all are welcome to participate.