Youth Fiction with Disability Representation

Ohlin, Nancy

Alicia was born to dance. She's determined to become a professional ballerina. A few years later, Alicia moves from Cuba to the United States to follow her dreams. Then, Alicia begins to lose her sight. How can a ballerina dance if she can't see where she's going? Stuck in bed and only able to practice with her fingertips, Alicia doesn't give up.

Bell, Cece

Going to school and making new friends can be tough. But going to school and making new friends while wearing a bulky hearing aid strapped to your chest? That requires superpowers!

Kelly, Erin Entrada

Lives of four misfits are intertwined when a bully's prank lands shy Virgil at the bottom of a well and Valencia, Kaori, and Gen band together in an epic quest to find and rescue him.

Patterson, James

Resolving to become the world's greatest stand-up comedian despite less-than-funny challenges in his life, wheelchair-bound middle school student Jamie Grimm endures bullying from his mean-spirited cousin and hopes he will be fairly judged when he entersa local comedy contest.

Bowling, Dusti

New friends and a mystery help Aven, thirteen, adjust to middle school and life at a dying western theme park in a new state, where her being born armless presents many challenges.

Green, Shari

Dealing with her mother remarrying a man with twin daughters and her family moving, deaf sixth-grader Macy is told that she must help her elderly neighbor Iris Gillan, who is getting ready to move to a nursing home.

Antony John

Confined to a wheelchair months after the car accident that paralyzed him and killed his father, Noah struggles to come to terms with the changes in his life and the fears that are keeping him from moving forward.

Draper, Sharon

Eleven-year-old Melody has a photographic memory. Her head is like a video camera that is always recording. She's the smartest kid in her whole school -- but no one knows it. If only she could speak up, if only she could tell people what she thinks and knows ... but she can't, because Melody can't talk. She can't walk. She can't write. Being stuck inside her head is making Melody go out of her mind -- that is, until she discovers something that will allow her to speak for the first time ever. At last Melody has a voice ... but not everyone around her is ready to hear it.

Sumner, Jamie

Twelve-year-old Ellie, who has cerebral palsy, finds her life transformed when she moves with her mother to small-town Oklahoma to help care for her grandfather, who has Alzheimer's Disease.

LeZotte, Ann Clare

It is 1805 and Mary Lambert has always felt safe among the deaf community of Chilmark on Martha's Vineyard where practically everyone communicates in a shared sign language, but recent events have shattered her life.

Kelly, Lynne

Twelve-year-old Iris and her grandmother, both deaf, drive from Texas to Alaska armed with Iris's plan to help Blue-55, a whale unable to communicate with other whales.

Stroker, Ali

After moving across the country, thirteen-year-old Natalie auditions for her new school's play and overcomes her fears and insecurities about performing in a wheelchair.

Peretti, Paola

When nine-year-old Mafalda learns she will go blind in six months from Stargardt Disease, she needs the help of family and friends to retain what is essential to her.

Van Draanen, Wendelin

When a school bus accident leaves sixteen-year-old Jessica an amputee, she returns to school with a prosthetic limb and her track team finds a wonderful way to help rekindle her dream of running again.

Cervantes, Jennifer

To prevent the Mayan gods from battling each other and destroying the world, thirteen-year-old Zane must unravel an ancient prophecy, stop an evil god, and discover how the physical disability that makes him reliant on a cane also connects him to his father and his ancestry.