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A Kids Book About Disability
A clear explanation of what disabilities are and how to navigate conversations about them.
Sometimes people act like having a disability means you’re from another planet, even though over a billion people in the world have disabilities. So how do you talk about disability? How do you talk to people with disabilities?
This book helps kids and grownups approach disability as a normal part of the human experience. This is one conversation that’s never too early to start, and this book was written to be an introduction on the topic for kids.
A Kids Book About Disability
- A large and bold, yet minimalist type-driven design that allows kids freedom to imagine themselves in the words on the pages.
- A friendly, approachable, empowering, kid-appropriate tone throughout.
- An incredible and diverse group of authors in this series who are experts or have first-hand experience of the topic.
Tackling important discourse together!
The A Kids Book About series are best used when read together. Helping to kickstart challenging, important and empowering conversations for kids and their grownups through beautiful and thought-provoking pages. The series supports an incredible and diverse group of authors, who are either experts in their field, or have first-hand experience on the topic.
A Kids Co. is a new kind of media company enabling kids to explore big topics in a new and engaging way. With a growing series of books, podcasts and blogs, made to empower. Learn more about us online by searching for A Kids Co.
Sometimes people act like having a disability means you’re from another planet, even though over a billion people in the world have disabilities. So how do you talk about disability? How do you talk to people with disabilities?
This book helps kids and grownups approach disability as a normal part of the human experience. This is one conversation that’s never too early to start, and this book was written to be an introduction on the topic for kids.
A Kids Book About Disability
- A large and bold, yet minimalist type-driven design that allows kids freedom to imagine themselves in the words on the pages.
- A friendly, approachable, empowering, kid-appropriate tone throughout.
- An incredible and diverse group of authors in this series who are experts or have first-hand experience of the topic.
Tackling important discourse together!
The A Kids Book About series are best used when read together. Helping to kickstart challenging, important and empowering conversations for kids and their grownups through beautiful and thought-provoking pages. The series supports an incredible and diverse group of authors, who are either experts in their field, or have first-hand experience on the topic.
A Kids Co. is a new kind of media company enabling kids to explore big topics in a new and engaging way. With a growing series of books, podcasts and blogs, made to empower. Learn more about us online by searching for A Kids Co.
72 pages, Hardcover
Published August 1, 2023
133 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 1, 2021
First up, there’s the format of the books, which fill my little typography nerd heart with such joy. There’s no pictures, except the ones made by the stark, simple text. Each book has it’s own simple and representative color palate, that evolves as the book unfolds. An example of this is the book on depression, which starts with white text on a black background, and the background gradually lightens as you move towards the end of the book, as the explanation of how to deal with depression and how it feels like fog lifting when your depression improves is being told. It doesn’t end on an overly simplified, ‘wow everything is fixed and bright white now’ page either, but just on a slightly less dark, purple page, simply shades lighter than where the author started, and it’s so simple, but so appropriate. The thought and care that so obviously went into every aspect of these books – inculding their design -is very clear.
Each book shares an accessibility in text (I would judge these to be between beginning/emergent and fluent reading levels, depending on both the kid and the topic in question), but also in their approach to hard subjects. From the first page’s explanation that these books might be better when read with an adult, to providing adults with intro/exit letters in each book, to the idea that each book is best used as a starting point for important conversations with kids, as opposed to the be-all, end-all authority on the topic, these books are so obviously crafted with deliberate & knowledgeable intent. They have age ranges on them (the books I’ve included here range from 5+ – disability, to 6+ – racism & anxiety, to 7+ depression & body image), and have an excellent summary and sort of pictorial trigger warnings on the back cover (a little emoji saying that the book discusses curiousity, fear, crying, bravery, hate, etc).
More specifically, each of the books covered their topics in simple & non-infantilized terms, which is SUCH a hard line to walk. A lot of books for kids either talk waaaay down to them, or go over their heads, especially when discussing topics as complicated as race or body image, but I didn’t find any of that in any of these five books. Just simple definitions and explanations, supported by the text & imagery, and thoroughly broken down into easy nuggets of truth that kids can easily grasp. In fact, some of their definitions and descriptions were so on point that I know kids much older than starting age for these books -I’m having my college age nephew read the depression one on his next weekend home, and his 14 year old sister read the anxiety book this morning and said “YUP!” – will also surely benefit from them, as will the adults in their lives.
Consider this definition of breaking through depression: “Sharing about my depression took the bricks from the walls built around my heart. And turned them into a bridge. A bridge back to me. The real me.” In fact? Sometimes I think these books are going to benefit their parents even more than they’ll benefit their kids, and for one simple reason: Because by making these things more accessible to kids, they’ve opened them new ways for adults to look at and consider them as well.
Since it’s been a while, a little reminder: I’m a disabled & chronically ill woman, an advocate for disabled people, and I’ve mentioned here previously that my specialization when working on my Master’s degree was the portrayal of characters with disabilities in picture books. So the book about disabilities was particularly of interest to me, and I was not disappointed at all. In fact, it’s my favorite of the bunch, and I’ll tell you why: The author, a disabled teacher herself, comes right out and tells kids that they are better at respecting disabled people than their grown ups: “Kids are good at being curious and respectful, including and not excluding. Grownups are usually just afraid they’ll say or do the wrong thing.” And that is the truth – no kid has ever stopped me in the mall and asked me about my sex life, or made a face when I’ve stood up to transfer into a different seat. Kids sometimes will say “what’s wrong with your legs?” but they never say it in a mean or dismissive way; they usually actually want to know why my legs don’t work. And when I explain that it’s not my legs that don’t work right, but my heart, they tend to think it’s pretty cool, instead of giving me the ’tilted head of pity’ that disabled people know oh so well. So a book that says “Having a disability is one of the many ways to be normal.” and “Disabled people belong everywhere.” straight out loud and simple like that? Kids ae going to be like “of course! duh.” and their parents are hopefully going to start seeing it just that simply too.
Here are a few other examples, from either the text of the books or the parent’s notes in those books:
“Mental health is communication, relationships, strong coping skills, and how you take care of your mind.” – a kids book about anxiety
“Kids are ready and willing to learn about tough things, if only the grown-ups in their lives are willing to talk about them.” – a kids book about racism
“Vulnerability is the soil of connection & growth” – a kids book about depression
“These companies would never make a single dollar if you didn’t believe there was something about you that needed to be fixed. Nothing about you needs to be fixed.” – a kids book about body image
Each of these books is going to be an essential resource for the parents & kids in my life, and if I was still teaching, I would immediately have requested as many as possible for my classroom. My next purchases are going to be some of the more upbeat titles – community, kindness, adventure, probably – just for some balance, but I don’t think I’m going to find many disappointments in the series. The utter compassion and care that each of these books has towards its topics, and the children & parents they’re trying to talk to about these topics, shines through on every page, and if you were thinking about buying one, but weren’t sure how good they were, I hope this review can give you that little push to at least give one a try.
Each book shares an accessibility in text (I would judge these to be between beginning/emergent and fluent reading levels, depending on both the kid and the topic in question), but also in their approach to hard subjects. From the first page’s explanation that these books might be better when read with an adult, to providing adults with intro/exit letters in each book, to the idea that each book is best used as a starting point for important conversations with kids, as opposed to the be-all, end-all authority on the topic, these books are so obviously crafted with deliberate & knowledgeable intent. They have age ranges on them (the books I’ve included here range from 5+ – disability, to 6+ – racism & anxiety, to 7+ depression & body image), and have an excellent summary and sort of pictorial trigger warnings on the back cover (a little emoji saying that the book discusses curiousity, fear, crying, bravery, hate, etc).
More specifically, each of the books covered their topics in simple & non-infantilized terms, which is SUCH a hard line to walk. A lot of books for kids either talk waaaay down to them, or go over their heads, especially when discussing topics as complicated as race or body image, but I didn’t find any of that in any of these five books. Just simple definitions and explanations, supported by the text & imagery, and thoroughly broken down into easy nuggets of truth that kids can easily grasp. In fact, some of their definitions and descriptions were so on point that I know kids much older than starting age for these books -I’m having my college age nephew read the depression one on his next weekend home, and his 14 year old sister read the anxiety book this morning and said “YUP!” – will also surely benefit from them, as will the adults in their lives.
Consider this definition of breaking through depression: “Sharing about my depression took the bricks from the walls built around my heart. And turned them into a bridge. A bridge back to me. The real me.” In fact? Sometimes I think these books are going to benefit their parents even more than they’ll benefit their kids, and for one simple reason: Because by making these things more accessible to kids, they’ve opened them new ways for adults to look at and consider them as well.
Since it’s been a while, a little reminder: I’m a disabled & chronically ill woman, an advocate for disabled people, and I’ve mentioned here previously that my specialization when working on my Master’s degree was the portrayal of characters with disabilities in picture books. So the book about disabilities was particularly of interest to me, and I was not disappointed at all. In fact, it’s my favorite of the bunch, and I’ll tell you why: The author, a disabled teacher herself, comes right out and tells kids that they are better at respecting disabled people than their grown ups: “Kids are good at being curious and respectful, including and not excluding. Grownups are usually just afraid they’ll say or do the wrong thing.” And that is the truth – no kid has ever stopped me in the mall and asked me about my sex life, or made a face when I’ve stood up to transfer into a different seat. Kids sometimes will say “what’s wrong with your legs?” but they never say it in a mean or dismissive way; they usually actually want to know why my legs don’t work. And when I explain that it’s not my legs that don’t work right, but my heart, they tend to think it’s pretty cool, instead of giving me the ’tilted head of pity’ that disabled people know oh so well. So a book that says “Having a disability is one of the many ways to be normal.” and “Disabled people belong everywhere.” straight out loud and simple like that? Kids ae going to be like “of course! duh.” and their parents are hopefully going to start seeing it just that simply too.
Here are a few other examples, from either the text of the books or the parent’s notes in those books:
“Mental health is communication, relationships, strong coping skills, and how you take care of your mind.” – a kids book about anxiety
“Kids are ready and willing to learn about tough things, if only the grown-ups in their lives are willing to talk about them.” – a kids book about racism
“Vulnerability is the soil of connection & growth” – a kids book about depression
“These companies would never make a single dollar if you didn’t believe there was something about you that needed to be fixed. Nothing about you needs to be fixed.” – a kids book about body image
Each of these books is going to be an essential resource for the parents & kids in my life, and if I was still teaching, I would immediately have requested as many as possible for my classroom. My next purchases are going to be some of the more upbeat titles – community, kindness, adventure, probably – just for some balance, but I don’t think I’m going to find many disappointments in the series. The utter compassion and care that each of these books has towards its topics, and the children & parents they’re trying to talk to about these topics, shines through on every page, and if you were thinking about buying one, but weren’t sure how good they were, I hope this review can give you that little push to at least give one a try.
June 1, 2022
This book contains the kinds of information I wish most current adults had been told when we were much younger. Information like how to think about those with disabilities (they're normal), what kind of disabilities are out there (thousands!), and that one individual with a disability is only able to share how they think about disabilities in the world and are not a representative for all people with disabilities. I like the examples inside about rude questions, how to offer help and how to react when someone with a disability says no, and what other kinds of things people with disabilities might like to talk about. All good concrete information with thoughtful advice.
December 2, 2020
Written by Kristen Napper (a teacher and lifelong wheelchair user), this book is a straightforward introduction to the disabled experience for young readers. Kristine speaks directly to the reader in a conversational way, introducing herself and detailing her experience as a disabled person. She gently introduces the concept of discrimination, but explains that disabled people want to be treated normally, because they ARE normal.
There are no traditional illustrations in A Kids Book About Disabilities, but there is a great color scheme of blue, white, and yellow throughout, with a few one word spreads for emphasis. This simple design is a brilliant way to make Kristine’s message the primary focus of the book, but keep young readers’ attention with fun colors.
A Kids Book About has lots of books like this one in their collection. From Anxiety to Racism, their books run the gamut on topics that are equally challenging and important to discuss with our children. You can find A Kids Book About Disabilities and all their other books at www.akidsbookabout.com.
I would also like to thank A Kids Book About for providing me with a review copy of this book. I can’t wait to pick up more!
There are no traditional illustrations in A Kids Book About Disabilities, but there is a great color scheme of blue, white, and yellow throughout, with a few one word spreads for emphasis. This simple design is a brilliant way to make Kristine’s message the primary focus of the book, but keep young readers’ attention with fun colors.
A Kids Book About has lots of books like this one in their collection. From Anxiety to Racism, their books run the gamut on topics that are equally challenging and important to discuss with our children. You can find A Kids Book About Disabilities and all their other books at www.akidsbookabout.com.
I would also like to thank A Kids Book About for providing me with a review copy of this book. I can’t wait to pick up more!
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October 23, 2023
For more bookish opinions, visit my blog: Craft-Cycle
Another great book in the A Kids Book About series. The information is presented in an all-text format with different fonts, styles, colors, and positions. The presentation was engaging while still focusing on the topics covered. The first-person narration helps connect with the reader.
This book covers crucial messages about normalizing disabilities, providing help only when needed (after asking first), that disabled people exists beyond their disability, and making the world more accessible and inclusive for all people. It encourages curiosity and talking about disabilities, while also providing examples of when questions come from mean intentions or are overly personal.
I especially liked Napper's point that disabilities are a normal part of life. Normal comes in many forms and there isn't one way to be normal.
This is a great book for both adults and kids. Well-presented information. A wonderful place to start when talking about disabilities.
Another great book in the A Kids Book About series. The information is presented in an all-text format with different fonts, styles, colors, and positions. The presentation was engaging while still focusing on the topics covered. The first-person narration helps connect with the reader.
This book covers crucial messages about normalizing disabilities, providing help only when needed (after asking first), that disabled people exists beyond their disability, and making the world more accessible and inclusive for all people. It encourages curiosity and talking about disabilities, while also providing examples of when questions come from mean intentions or are overly personal.
I especially liked Napper's point that disabilities are a normal part of life. Normal comes in many forms and there isn't one way to be normal.
This is a great book for both adults and kids. Well-presented information. A wonderful place to start when talking about disabilities.
November 11, 2024
Love this book! This book is recommended to be read with a grown-up and a child. It includes an introduction and outro for adults before reading with their child. The book itself goes through how to interact with a person with a disability. The author, Kristine Napper, has Spinal Muscular Atrophy and explains what questions are and aren't okay to ask a person with a disability. She highly emphasizes how people with disabilities are normal people so they should be treated like normal people! She also highlights that the world needs to change in terms of accessibility. I thought this book was phenomenal and I'm so glad I stumbled upon it at the library. I will 100% be adding this book to my classroom library to use it as a class read-aloud or to provide it to families as a resource.
May 28, 2021
This book makes three important points that I will be echoing with my kids:
1. Disability is normal. Meaning, in any group of people, people with disabilities will and should be there.
2. People with disabilities do not need to be fixed.
3. The world needs to change, starting with the erasure of people with disabilities. The author encourages young readers to notice when there is no representation of people with disabilities (we talked about Harry Potter and another book series we finished recently), and when there are barriers to access (we talked about our community center, which only recently had a ramp installed).
Highly recommended!
1. Disability is normal. Meaning, in any group of people, people with disabilities will and should be there.
2. People with disabilities do not need to be fixed.
3. The world needs to change, starting with the erasure of people with disabilities. The author encourages young readers to notice when there is no representation of people with disabilities (we talked about Harry Potter and another book series we finished recently), and when there are barriers to access (we talked about our community center, which only recently had a ramp installed).
Highly recommended!
June 23, 2020
This book is beautifully done and allows grace for children and adults to better know how to discuss disabilities and also how to interact with a person who has a disability. The book reminds us that the people with disabilities are normal and want to be treated thusly, and that usually it's grownup that make things awkward and uncomfortable while children are curious but still kind. I would recommend this for anyone wanting to better broach the topic with their children, or even as a reminder for adults to be kind and empathetic. For ages 5+
May 27, 2023
I was very interested in this whole 'A Kids Book About...' series, but having now read my first one, I'm not sure I like the format. It's a book for kids, but there are no illustrations, just text (albeit in bright colors and nice, big, bold fonts). The information in it is good and well-explained for the intended audience, but I wonder how a kid would react to being read this book.
I just think it would've been better, and more enjoyable for the kids, if it had illustrations.
🗓 52 Picture Books Challenge 2023: 12/52
I just think it would've been better, and more enjoyable for the kids, if it had illustrations.
🗓 52 Picture Books Challenge 2023: 12/52
December 31, 2020
This book is an excellent introduction to disabilities for kids (and let's be honest, to adults, too). It is written by someone who has a disability and provides a great starting point to learning more about disabilities and different types of disabilities.
April 4, 2021
I thought the message was super great. I just wished that the book had pictures. It is a children's story book so I was expecting it to have pictures.
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August 6, 2021305.908 N217 2020
January 27, 2025
I thought it told too much and did not show enough . Some of the details were great like the author naming her wheelchair and having dyed hair. Other details were difficult to understand or read because of the way they were printed.
August 14, 2023
I liked this book, but I did have some issues. For example, the title says that this is "A Kid's Book ...." and yet, there is an Intro and "Outro" directed towards adults. This book is for children and while there are many descriptive words, there are no illustrations, photographs, etc. A Graphic Designer did an outstanding job emphasizing the words that the Author wanted to point out, but if you are going to introduce yourself to a child and talk about your "pretty purple wheelchair" called Lydia, then I would expect to see a photograph of the author with a little bit of purple at the front of her brown hair, dangly earrings, and cozy sweater sitting in her pretty purple wheelchair, but there is NOTHING!
If the intended audience is a child(ren) and you (as described by the Author of the book) are Normal, and KIDS are really good at treating a person with a disability like a regular person and in a respectful way, then why no photographs or illustrations?
Next, please do not tell me that it's okay to ask you (Author) a question about you, your chair, or disability on one page, and then go on to tell the reader what questions they should not ask, and then a couple of pages later, tell the reader that you can talk about ANYTHING with a person who has a disability. This sends mixed messages because you just told us that there are inappropriate (understandable) things to ask, and then ...
Sorry for harping on the lack of illustrations, but I'm a visual learner. The information provided would be much more memorable if there were pictures. Otherwise, it's just words in a book, which this pretty much is.
If the intended audience is a child(ren) and you (as described by the Author of the book) are Normal, and KIDS are really good at treating a person with a disability like a regular person and in a respectful way, then why no photographs or illustrations?
Next, please do not tell me that it's okay to ask you (Author) a question about you, your chair, or disability on one page, and then go on to tell the reader what questions they should not ask, and then a couple of pages later, tell the reader that you can talk about ANYTHING with a person who has a disability. This sends mixed messages because you just told us that there are inappropriate (understandable) things to ask, and then ...
Sorry for harping on the lack of illustrations, but I'm a visual learner. The information provided would be much more memorable if there were pictures. Otherwise, it's just words in a book, which this pretty much is.
June 20, 2024
Most of the time, I really like the graphics in this series. While I did like the ones here, there is a need to show kids what you are talking about sometimes. This author talks a lot about her wheelchair and how she moves through the world differently than many other people and how some places are inaccessible to her due to that. That's great info. But it would be much more helpful for kids to actually see what she is talking about - what the wheelchair looks like, what buildings that accessible/inaccessible look like, etc. It also gives examples of what questions it is not okay to ask about her disability, which is good to know, but the author says she is willing to talk about it. However, she only offers examples of questions like what her favorite ice cream flavor is. Sure, that is a great thing to ask someone. But if a kid is curious about disability and wants to ask her a question about it, it would be really helpful for them to have examples of what kind of questions ARE okay. It's true - adults often don't know what to say and therefore, they say things wrong or don't say anything at all. But if we want our kids to be better than us, we have to give them ways to do that.
It sounds like I didn't like this book, which isn't the case at all. I DO like it, and I hope that future editions will be even more helpful, so I am taking the time to critique what I see as things that could be improved.
It sounds like I didn't like this book, which isn't the case at all. I DO like it, and I hope that future editions will be even more helpful, so I am taking the time to critique what I see as things that could be improved.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews