Children's book about disability

TaniaN

Hi, My name is Tania. I live in Oxfordshire and am a wheelchair user due to Spina Bifida. During lockdown I wrote a children's book to help children come to terms with using a wheelchair and help them to celebrate their difference. It is based on my experiences as a lifelong wheelchair user and teacher in a mainstream school. If anyone would like to read it and put a review on Amazon, this is the link: 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seth-Changes-Mind-Tania-Nurton/dp/B08MSHCMK4/ref=sr_1_1?crid=37P7HANL95JHM&dchild=1&keywords=seth+changes+his+mind&qid=1606591892&sprefix=Seth+Changes+His+Mind,stripbooks,153&sr=8-1.      TIA

littleacorn

My daughter in law has been looking for information regarding teachers with disabilities for her studies and has been finding jt very difficult to find any information so she will be thrilled when I show her this. Thankyou for sharing it.

littleacorn

Does the book show that adukts use wheelchairs and can still achieve their dreams?

TaniaN

I hope the message is that wheelchair users can do what everyone else does, and by getting out there and getting on with life we can normalise disability so it’s less of a big deal.

Cher_Alumni

Hi @taniaN and welcome to our online community.  It's great you found us.

Well done on writing a book over lockdown!  It's great that you are increasing positive representation of impairment in children's literature as for too long its been absent.  How did you find the writing process?  Did it come easy?

We recently discussed some other books covering disability for Children's Book Week.  Plus Scope have a website section dedicated to storybooks featuring disabled children that you might find interesting.

@littleacorn Point your daughter towards Sinead Burke too!  She's a famous disabled person, author and spokesperson who also used to be a primary school teacher.  She regularly talks about the obstacles she faced before going into teaching and how people thought it wouldn't be possible.  Here she is talking on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island discs.

TaniaN

Hi, thanks for this. The idea took a while to come together, but the actual writing process was ok. I suppose it helps that I didn’t have so many distractions over lockdown. I have a couple of other ideas for books, but am going to see how this one goes down first 

chiarieds

Hi @TaniaN - welcome to the community, & thank you for joining. It's great you've written a book with such a positive message, & hopefully more in the pipeline! I look forward to seeing you around the forum.