The Disability Experience: Working toward Belonging –E-ARC Review

Hi! This book was free on Net Galley read now in exchange for an honest review. These opinions are my own. Information about the book comes from Goodreads.

Title:  The Disability Experience: Working toward Belonging

Author: Hannalora Leavitt and Belle Wuthrich (Illustrations)

Genre: Middle Grade, Young Adult, Non-Fiction, and Own-Voices

Expected Publication: April 13^th, 2021 from Orca Book Publishers

Add to Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55668824-the-disability-experience

 

Rating: **** (4 stars)

Goodreads Summary

 

People with disabilities (PWDs) have the same aspirations for their lives as you do for yours. The difference is that PWDs don’t have the same access to education, employment, housing, transportation, and healthcare to achieve their goals. In The Disability Experience, you’ll meet people with different kinds of disabilities, and you'll begin to understand the ways PWDs have been ignored, reviled, and marginalized throughout history. The book also celebrates the triumphs and achievements of PWDs and shares the powerful stories of those who have fought for change.

 

Overall

I saw this book on Net Galley Read Now, and I knew that I would want to read it. I’m glad I read it because even though I knew a lot about what they said in the book, I still enjoyed the experience and I still did learn some things. My favorite sections of the book were the ones that talked about people living with disabilities in real life. These sections showed that just because someone had some kind of disability, it didn’t mean that they were much different from you. This book featured people who had jobs, athletes, and we're helping people in their community. I love learning about these people and seeing what they were doing with their lives.

 

Writing

 

One of the reasons you read a Non-Fiction book is to learn something.  The book will teach you something about a topic, and you hope to come out knowing something more than what you knew when you started reading. The key thing about the writing of this book is that it is conversational, and it has a factual tone because it lets you know about people with all kinds of different disabilities. The writing is clear and the word choice makes this book easy to follow. What stood out for me about this book was that this covered a lot of different bases, giving information to the reader about specific types, and leaving room for research after you have finished reading. Information about disability services throughout the world, and how people can help disabled people is also found throughout the book.  Another reason I loved this book was that it talked about real people with disabilities, and it showed how they were living their daily lives. While this book might be geared towards Middle Grade and Young Adult, I think that even an adult could learn from reading this. A work of Non-Fiction can start a conversation, and this book is a great way to start talking about the topic of people with disabilities.

 

Photos and Illustrations

The photos in this book are excellent because it makes the reader see exactly what the people with disabilities look like. Each section that talks about a person with a disability in real life has a photo, and there are photo’s as you read through the rest of the book. The illustrations are great because it brings the reader into the life of a person with disabilities. Having the photos and illustrations only adds to and enhances what is being said in the book.