Gary Strong Curriculum Center - College of Education, Health and Human Sciences: Disabilities

Thirteen-year-old Rocky, self-conscious about the braces on her leg, has her life changed by the remarkable artist who comes to her small Kansas town to design a war memorial.

Adonis is smart, intellectually gifted and born without legs; Autumn is strong, a great wrestler, and barely able to read in ninth grade--but Autumn is attracted to Adonis and determined to make him a part of her life whatever he or her best friend thinks.

At the beginning of eighth grade, learning disabled Max and his new friend Freak, whose birth defect has affected his body but not his brilliant mind, find that when they combine forces they make a powerful team.

In a futuristic society sixteen-year-old Gem discovers that a group of handicapped people who call themselves the Waterbound live hidden beneath the City.

Three boys overcome prejudicial ideas about appearances and become friends.

Fourteen-year-old Shawn McDaniel, who suffers from severe cerebral palsy and cannot function, relates his perceptions of his life, his family, and his condition, especially as he believes his father is planning to kill him.

Making friends with a mentally disabled boy helps Kate learn that the two of them have a lot in common.

When the family moves from Germany to Canada in the 1930's, a nine-year-old girl discovers the reason for her awkwardness and apparent inability to do anything right.

Hoping to expunge neighborhood prejudice and to do something everyone else has failed to do, a twelve year-old desperately tries to teach her retarded twin.

A young boy tells about Jacob, who, though older and mentally slower, helps him a lot and is his very best friend.

When Mikkel's older handicapped brother accidentally hurts someone and is threatened by that boy's friends, Mikkel resolves the situation in an unusual and interesting way.

A runt piglet born with deformed front feet is coached in swimming by a duck and an otter and, when the pig farm is flooded, becomes a hero.

A high school athlete, frustrated at being handicapped after an accident, runs away from home and is helped back to mental and physical health by a black benefactor and the people in a special school where he enrolls.

A young boy describes the experiences of his slow learning younger brother at school and at home.

When an accident requires Arnie to use crutches, he begins to understand the limits and possibilities of his new classmate, who has a wheelchair.

Fifteen-year-old Will Bennon leaves his family and begins life as a cowboy, but his mentally retarded twin brother follows him and joins the journey.

"Eleven-year-old Melody has a photographic memory. Her head is like a video camera that is always recording. Always. And there's no delete button. She's the smartest kid in her whole school--but no one knows it. Most people--her teachers and doctors included--don't think she's capable of learning, and up until recently her school days consisted of listening to the same preschool-level alphabet lessons again and again and again. 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."--Jacket.

August Pullman was born with a facial deformity that, up until now, prevented him from going to a mainstream school. Starting 5th grade at Beecher Prep, he wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid -- but his classmates can't get past Auggie's extraordinary face. Wonder begins from Auggie's point of view, but soon switches to include his classmates, his sister, her boyfriend, and others. These perspectives converge in a portrait of one community's struggle with empathy, compassion, and acceptance.