Staff Picks
Characters with Chronic Conditions and Disabilities in Teen Fiction
- Brittany C.
- Wednesday, July 29, 2020
Collection
Living with a chronic condition or disability can make you feel alone, but these titles offer an opportunity to engage in and explore a diverse community of characters with disabilities. From a girl with cerebral palsy falling into another dimension (A Curse So Dark and Lonely), to a girl navigating rheumatoid arthritis and risking everything for the only person who understands (Sick Kids in Love), these stories cross genres and explore a different facet of the teen experience.
A Taxonomy of Love
Published in 2018
From age thirteen to nineteen, Spencer experiences an ever-changing relationship with Hope, the girl next door who helps him cope with his Tourette syndrome but likes his Neanderthal brother, Dean.
The Memory Book
Published in 2016
When a rare genetic disorder steals away her memories and then her health, teenaged Sammie records notes in a journal to her future self, documenting moments great and small.
A Quiet Kind of Thunder
Published in 2017
Steffi doesn't talk. Rhys can't hear. They understand each other perfectly. Love isn't always a lightning strike. Sometimes it's the rumbling roll of thunder ... Steffi has been a selective mute for most of her life - she's been silent for so long that she feels completely invisible. But Rhys, the new boy at school, sees her. He's deaf, and her knowledge of basic sign language means that she's assigned to look after him. To Rhys it doesn't matter that Steffi doesn't talk and, as they find ways to communicate, Steffi finds that she does have a voice, and that she's falling in love with the one person who makes her feel brave enough to use it.
The Last Leaves Falling
Published in 2015
In Japan, teenaged Abe Sora, who is afflicted with "Lou Gehrig's Disease," finds friends online and elicits their help to end his suffering.
Out of My Mind
Published in 2010
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.From multiple Coretta Scott King Award winner Sharon M. Draper comes a story full of heartache and hope. Get ready to meet a girl whose voice you'll never, ever forget.
Out of My Mind
Published in 2010
Considered by many to be mentally retarded, a brilliant, impatient fifth-grader with cerebral palsy discovers a technological device that will allow her to speak for the first time.
Two Girls Staring at the Ceiling
Published in 2014
In this novel in verse, two very different girls bond while hospitalized for Crohn's disease.
The Silence Between Us
Published in 2019
Maya has reservations about transferring to a hearing school after studying in a school for the deaf for years, but grows closer to Beau Watson, the student body president, who starts learning sign language to communicate with her.
Five Feet Apart
Published in 2018
Now a major motion picture starring Cole Sprouse and Haley Lu Richardson! In this #1 New York Times bestselling novel that's perfect for fans of John Green's The Fault in Our Stars , two teens fall in love with just one minor complication?they can't get within a few feet of each other without risking their lives. Can you love someone you can never touch? Stella Grant likes to be in control?even though her totally out of control lungs have sent her in and out of the hospital most of her life. At this point, what Stella needs to control most is keeping herself away from anyone or anything that might pass along an infection and jeopardize the possibility of a lung transplant. Six feet apart. No exceptions. The only thing Will Newman wants to be in control of is getting out of this hospital. He couldn't care less about his treatments, or a fancy new clinical drug trial. Soon, he'll turn eighteen and then he'll be able to unplug all these machines and actually go see the world, not just its hospitals. Will's exactly what Stella needs to stay away from. If he so much as breathes on Stella she could lose her spot on the transplant list. Either one of them could die. The only way to stay alive is to stay apart. But suddenly six feet doesn't feel like safety. It feels like punishment. What if they could steal back just a little bit of the space their broken lungs have stolen from them? Would five feet apart really be so dangerous if it stops their hearts from breaking too?
A Curse So Dark and Lonely
Published in 2019
A New York Times bestseller! " Has everything you'd want in a retelling of a classic fairy tale." - Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of A Spark of Light and Small Great Things "Absolutely spellbinding." - Stephanie Garber, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Caraval and Legendary In a lush, contemporary fantasy retelling of Beauty and the Beast, Brigid Kemmerer gives readers another compulsively readable romance perfect for fans of Marissa Meyer. Fall in love, break the curse. It once seemed so easy to Prince Rhen, the heir to Emberfall. Cursed by a powerful enchantress to repeat the autumn of his eighteenth year over and over, he knew he could be saved if a girl fell for him. But that was before he learned that at the end of each autumn, he would turn into a vicious beast hell-bent on destruction. That was before he destroyed his castle, his family, and every last shred of hope. Nothing has ever been easy for Harper. With her father long gone, her mother dying, and her brother barely holding their family together while constantly underestimating her because of her cerebral palsy, she learned to be tough enough to survive. But when she tries to save someone else on the streets of Washington, DC, she's instead somehow sucked into Rhen's cursed world. Break the curse, save the kingdom. A prince? A monster? A curse? Harper doesn't know where she is or what to believe. But as she spends time with Rhen in this enchanted land, she begins to understand what's at stake. And as Rhen realizes Harper is not just another girl to charm, his hope comes flooding back. But powerful forces are standing against Emberfall . . . and it will take more than a broken curse to save Harper, Rhen, and his people from utter ruin.
A Curse So Dark and Lonely
Published in 2019
Eighteen for the three hundred twenty-seventh time, Prince Rhen despairs of breaking the curse that turns him into a beast at the end of each day until feisty Harper enters his life.
Five Feet Apart
Published in 2018
Seventeen-year-olds Stella and Will, both suffering from cystic fibrosis, realize the only way to stay alive is to stay apart, but their love for each other is slowly pushing the boundaries of physical and emotional safety.
Sick Kids in Love
Published in 2019
"Isabel has one rule: no dating. It's easier-it's safer-it's better-for the other person. She's got issues. She's got secrets. She's got rheumatoid arthritis. But then she meets another sick kid. He's got a chronic illness Isabel's never heard of, something she can't even pronounce. He understands what it means to be sick. He understands her more than her healthy friends. He understands her more than her own father, who's a doctor. He's gorgeous, fun, and foul-mouthed. And totally into her. Isabel has one rule: no dating. It's complicated-it's dangerous-it's never felt better-to consider breaking that rule for him."
Carve the Mark
Published in 2017
Fans of Star Wars and Divergent will revel in internationally bestselling author Veronica Roth's stunning new science-fiction fantasy series. On a planet where violence and vengeance rule, in a galaxy where some are favored by fate, everyone develops a currentgift, a unique power meant to shape the future. While most benefit from their currentgifts, Akos and Cyra do not?their gifts make them vulnerable to others' control. Can they reclaim their gifts, their fates, and their lives, and reset the balance of power in this world? Cyra is the sister of the brutal tyrant who rules the Shotet people. Cyra's currentgift gives her pain and power?something her brother exploits, using her to torture his enemies. But Cyra is much more than just a blade in her brother's hand: she is resilient, quick on her feet, and smarter than he knows. Akos is from the peace-loving nation of Thuvhe, and his loyalty to his family is limitless. Though protected by his unusual currentgift, once Akos and his brother are captured by enemy Shotet soldiers, Akos is desperate to get his brother out alive?no matter what the cost. When Akos is thrust into Cyra's world, the enmity between their countries and families seems insurmountable. They must decide to help each other to survive?or to destroy one another.
Carve the Mark
Published in 2017
Living on a violent planet where everyone develops a unique power meant to shape the future, Akos and Cyra, youths from enemy nations, resent gifts that render them vulnerable to others' control before they become unlikely survival partners.
When My Heart Joins the Thousand
Published in 2018
Alvie Fitz is determined to keep pretending to be normal until she is eighteen and can be legally emancipated, but everything changes when she meets Stanley, the only person she has met who is stranger than she is.