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Stars in Their Eyes: A Graphic Novel
A Stonewall Honor Book
In this lighthearted YA romance, Maisie and Ollie discover that nothing beats the feeling of falling in love for the first time.
Maisie is on her way to Fancon! She's looking forward to meeting her idol, Kara Bufano, the action hero from her favorite TV show, who has a lower-leg amputation, just like Maisie. But when Maisie and her mom arrive at the convention center, she is stopped in her tracks by Ollie, a cute volunteer working the show. They are kind, charming, and geek out about nerd culture just as much as Maisie does. And as the day wears on, Maisie notices feelings for Ollie that she's never had before. Is this what it feels like to fall in love?
Perfect for fans of Heartstopper and Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, this graphic novel debut is a fresh, one-of-a-kind story that celebrates the excitement of meeting someone special for the first time.
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Mistletoe & Mishigas: Teachers in Love: Book 2
Beauty and the Bear. Can these opposites fake their way to something real?
Sheldon Soleskin should be having a horrible day. Even though he's been unexpectedly transferred to a new school right before the holidays, has only one day to set up his new classroom, and just discovered his twin sister's been hiding an invitation to his ex-boyfriend's Christmas Eve wedding, he's still ready to take on the world with a smile on his face and a skip in his step.
Theo Berenson just wants to be left alone to his custodial duties. But when the chipper new first-grade teacher needs help moving furniture the Sunday after Thanksgiving, he's forced to do something he detests. Help. To make matters worse, Theo's overbearing parents are coming for Hanukah in a few weeks, and he's told them he has a boyfriend. Except he doesn't. Because who would want to date an oaf like Theo?
Working together, these opposites discover they might be able to help each other out. Agreeing to be each other's dates, they become friends as they practice for their upcoming events. But when all the rehearsing starts feeling a little too real, and both men's pasts come roaring back to haunt them, will they be able to pull off the ultimate holiday masquerade?
Advance Praise for Mistletoe and Mishigas
"Sheldon and Theo's opposites-attract, Beauty-and-the-Beast chemistry grabbed me from the first chapter and never let go. Their past traumas are handled deftly with Wardell's now-signature humor and care, creating a love story both steamy and sweet, with an HEA steeped in personal growth and full acceptance of the other. Wholly delightful and full of Hanukah spirit-Wardell's voice jumps off the page." - Anita Kelly, author of Something Wild and Wonderful
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Bodies and Barriers: Queer Activists on Health
LGBT people pervasively experience health disparities, affecting every part of their bodies and lives. Yet many are still grappling to understand the mutually reinforcing health care challenges that lead to worsened health outcomes. Bodies and Barriers informs health care professionals, students in health professions, policymakers, and fellow activists about these challenges, providing insights and a road map for action that could improve queer health.
Through artfully articulated, data-informed essays by twenty-six well-known and emerging queer activists--including Alisa Bowman, Jack Harrison-Quintana, Liz Margolies, Robyn Ochs, Sean Strub, Justin Sabia-Tanis, Ryan Thoreson, Imani Woody, and more--Bodies and Barriers illuminates the health challenges LGBT people experience throughout their lives and challenges conventional wisdom about health care delivery. It probes deeply into the roots of the disparities faced by those in the LGBT community and provides crucial information to fight for health equity and better health outcomes.
The contributors to;Bodies and Barriers look for tangible improvements, drawing from the history of HIV/AIDS in the U.S. and from struggles against health care bias and discrimination. At a galvanizing moment when LGBT people have experienced great strides in lived equality, but our health as a community still lags, here is an indispensable blueprint for change by some of the most passionate and important health activists in the LGBT movement today.
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Time and Time Again
In this debut YA speculative romance perfect for fans of Rachael Lippincott, two queer, disabled, Jewish teens find themselves stuck in a time loop--and falling love.
Phoebe Mendel's day is never ending--literally. On August 6th, she woke up to find herself stuck in a time loop. And for nearly a month of August 6ths since, Phoebe has relived the same day: pancakes with Mom in the morning, Scrabble with Dad in the afternoon, and constant research into how to reach tomorrow and make it to her appointment with a doctor who may actually take her IBS seriously. Everything is exactly, agonizingly the same. That is, until the most mundane car crash ever sends Phoebe's childhood crush Jess crashing into the time loop. Now also stuck, Jess convinces Phoebe to break out of her routine and take advantage of their consequence-free days to have fun. From splurging on concert tickets, to enacting (mostly) harmless revenge, to all-night road trips, Jess pulls Phoebe further and further out of her comfort zone--and deeper in love with them. But the more Phoebe falls for Jess, the more she worries about what's on the other side of the time loop. What if Jess is only giving her the time of day because they're trapped with no other options? What if Phoebe's new doctor dismisses her chronic pain? And perhaps worst of all: What if she never gets the chance to find out? -
Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation
2018 American Book Award Winner A beautifully written, deeply provocative inquiry into the intersection of animal and disability liberation--and the debut of an important new social critic How much of what we understand of ourselves as "human" depends on our physical and mental abilities--how we move (or cannot move) in and interact with the world? And how much of our definition of "human" depends on its difference from "animal"? Drawing on her own experiences as a disabled person, a disability activist, and an animal advocate, author Sunaura Taylor persuades us to think deeply, and sometimes uncomfortably, about what divides the human from the animal, the disabled from the nondisabled--and what it might mean to break down those divisions, to claim the animal and the vulnerable in ourselves, in a process she calls "cripping animal ethics." Beasts of Burden suggests that issues of disability and animal justice--which have heretofore primarily been presented in opposition--are in fact deeply entangled. Fusing philosophy, memoir, science, and the radical truths these disciplines can bring--whether about factory farming, disability oppression, or our assumptions of human superiority over animals--Taylor draws attention to new worlds of experience and empathy that can open up important avenues of solidarity across species and ability. Beasts of Burden is a wonderfully engaging and elegantly written work, both philosophical and personal, by a brilliant new voice.
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Masterpiece: an inclusive kids book celebrating a child on the autism spectrum
Masterpiece is an Award-winning book, recently winning The Golden Wizard Book Prize and placing as a Top 3 Finalist for Book of the Year!
Masterpiece is an inclusive story featuring Samuel, a boy on the autism spectrum who sees the world differently than his peers. When Samuel's teacher asks his class to create a piece of art, it quickly becomes apparent that his beautiful way of looking at the world makes him a true masterpiece!
Throughout the story, the other students in his class learn lessons of empathy, understanding and acceptance. The colourful illustrations will delight children and Masterpiece may just become a family favourite.
This award-winning book is suitable for all ages!
Teachers
Here are some reasons to include 'Masterpiece' in your classroom:
- Filled with gorgeous illustrations
- Illustrations include noise-cancelling headphones (sensory accommodations not typically illustrated in picture books )
- This book encourages children to embrace their gifts and talents
- A fantastic read-aloud to teach children lessons of inclusion, empathy and understanding.
- Shows children that they should embrace those unique parts of themselves that make them incredible
- Celebrates the diversity in our world
- Develops early literacy
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The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes and Mourning Songs
In The Future Is Disabled, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha asks some provocative questions: What if, in the near future, the majority of people will be disabled--and what if that's not a bad thing? And what if disability justice and disabled wisdom are crucial to creating a future in which it's possible to survive fascism, climate change, and pandemics and to bring about liberation?
Building on the work of her game changing book Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice, Piepzna-Samarasinha writes about disability justice at the end of the world, documenting the many ways disabled people kept and are keeping each other--and the rest of the world--alive during Trump, fascism and the COVID-19 pandemic. Other subjects include crip interdependence, care and mutual aid in real life, disabled community building, and disabled art practice as survival and joy.
Written over the course of two years of disabled isolation during the pandemic, this is a book of love letters to other disabled QTBIPOC (and those concerned about disability justice, the care crisis, and surviving the apocalypse); honor songs for kin who are gone; recipes for survival; questions and real talk about care, organizing, disabled families, and kin networks and communities; and wild brown disabled femme joy in the face of death. With passion and power, The Future Is Disabled remembers our dead and insists on our future.
This updated edition includes a new chapter and afterword by the author.
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Interabled: True Stories about Love and Disability from Squirmy & Grubs and Other Interabled Couples
YouTube sensations Shane and Hannah Burcaw are back with a groundbreaking, uproarious collection of essays and short stories about what it means to be in an interabled relationship.
With their signature wit and hilarious voice, authors, bloggers, and entrepreneurs Shane and Hannah Burcaw have put together a true story collection of sweet and unforgettable love stories about interabled couples. Follow the lives of several couples as they navigate their love story in an ableist world. Sometimes tear-jerking, sometimes funny, and always heartwarming, this moving collection comprised of interviews and short stories - with interludes from Shane and Hannah about their own dating and marriage journey - will have readers laughing and sobbing as they discover true stories of love and commitment. -
Crisis and Care: Queer Activist Responses to a Global Pandemic
Crisis and Care reveals what is possible when activists mobilize for the radical changes our society needs. In a time of great uncertainty, fear, and isolation, Queer activists organized for health equity, prison abolition, racial justice, and more. Nobody who lived through the COVID-19 pandemic will soon forget the challenges, sacrifices, and incredible loss felt during such an uncertain time in history. Crisis and Care anthologizes not what happened during COVID-19, or why it happened, but rather how Queer activists responded in real time. It considers the necessity to memorialize resiliency as well as loss, hope as well as pain, to remember the strides forward as well as the steps back. Activist contributors Zephyr Williams, Mark Travis Rivera, Jamie Gliksburg, Denise Spivak, Emmett Patterson, Omar Gonzales-Pagan, Kenyon Farrow, and more provide a radical lens through which future activists can consider effective strategies to make change, even or perhaps especially, during periods of crisis.
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Red Clay Suzie
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction 2023 First Novel Prize A novel inspired by true events The coming-of-age story of Philbet, a gay, physically-misshapen boy in rural Georgia, who battles bullying, ignorance, and disdain as he makes his way in life as an outsider--before finding acceptance in unlikely places. Fueled by tomato sandwiches and green milkshakes, and obsessed with cars, Philbet struggles with life and love as a gay boy in rural Georgia. He's happiest when helping Grandaddy dig potatoes from the vegetable garden that connects their houses. But Philbet's world is shattered and his resilience shaken by events that crush his innocence and sense of security; expose his misshapen chest skillfully hidden behind shirts Mama makes at home; and convince him that he's not fit to be loved by Knox, the older boy he idolizes to distraction. Over time, Philbet finds refuge in unexpected places and inner strength in unexpected ways, leading to a resolution in the form of a letter from beyond the grave. -
Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, a Books for a Better Life Award, and one of The New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of 2012, this masterpiece by the National Book Award-winning author of The Noonday Demon features stories of parents who not only learn to deal with their exceptional children, but also find profound meaning in doing so--"a brave, beautiful book that will expand your humanity" (People). Solomon's startling proposition in Far from the Tree is that being exceptional is at the core of the human condition--that difference is what unites us. He writes about families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, or multiple severe disabilities; with children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, who are transgender. While each of these characteristics is potentially isolating, the experience of difference within families is universal, and Solomon documents triumphs of love over prejudice in every chapter. All parenting turns on a crucial question: to what extent should parents accept their children for who they are, and to what extent they should help them become their best selves. Drawing on ten years of research and interviews with more than three hundred families, Solomon mines the eloquence of ordinary people facing extreme challenges. Elegantly reported by a spectacularly original and compassionate thinker, Far from the Tree explores how people who love each other must struggle to accept each other--a theme in every family's life. -
The Loudest Silence
Two disabled queer teens find belonging in this poignant platonic love story about singing, signing, and solidarity. Sixteen-year-old Casey Kowalski once dreamed of becoming a professional singer. Then the universe threw her a life-altering curveball--sudden, permanent, and profound hearing loss--mere months before her family's cross-country move from Portland to Miami. Now, faced with the dual challenges of starting over at a new high school and learning to navigate the world as a Deaf-Hard of Hearing person, Casey is mourning the loss of her music while trying to conceal her hearing loss from her new schoolmates. Soccer captain Hayden González-Rossi is facing challenges of his own. Three generations of González men have risen to stardom on the soccer field, including Hayden's older brother, who just became Inter Miami CF's hottest new recruit. Hayden knows his family expects him to follow in their footsteps, but he has a secret: all he wants is to quit the soccer team and pursue a career on Broadway. If only his Generalized Anxiety Disorder didn't send him into a debilitating spiral over the thought of telling his family the truth. Casey and Hayden are both determined to hide who they really are. But when they cross paths at school, they end up bonding over their shared love of music and their mutual feeling that they don't quite belong, and the secrets come spilling out. Their intimate friendship is the beating heart of this dual-perspective story featuring thoughtful disability representation, nuanced queer identities, and a lovably quirky supporting cast. -
Sold outTime to Roll
In the eagerly anticipated sequel to Jamie Sumner's acclaimed and beloved middle grade novel Roll with It, Ellie finds her own way to shine. Ellie is so not the pageant type. They're Coralee's thing, and Ellie is happy to let her talented friend shine in the spotlight. But what's she supposed to do when Coralee asks her to enter a beauty pageant, and their other best friend, Bert, volunteers to be their manager? Then again, how else is she going to get through this summer with her dad, who barely knows her, while her mom is off on her honeymoon with Ellie's amazing gym teacher? Ellie decides she has nothing to lose. There's only one problem: the director of the pageant seems determined to put Ellie and her wheelchair front and center. So it's up to Ellie to figure out a way to do it on her own terms and make sure her friendships don't fall apart along the way. Through it all, from thrift store deep dives to disastrous dance routines, she begins to form her own definition of beauty and what it means to really be seen.Sold out -
Everything No One Tells You about Parenting a Disabled Child: Your Guide to the Essential Systems, Services, and Supports
The honest, relatable, actionable roadmap to the practicalities of parenting a disabled child, featuring personal stories, expert interviews, and the foundational information parents need to know about topics including diagnosis, school, doctors, insurance, financial planning, disability rights, and what life looks like as a parent caregiver. For parents of disabled children, navigating the systems, services, and supports is a daunting, and often overwhelming, task. No one explains to parents how to figure out the complex medical, educational, and social service systems essential to their child's success. Over and over, parents are being asked to reinvent the exact same wheels. According to the CDC, "Every 4 1/2 minutes a baby is born with a birth defect in the United States." That's 1 in 33. There's no handbook for how to do this. Until now. Presented with empathy and humor, Everything No One Tells You About Parenting a Disabled Child: Your Guide to the Essential Systems, Services, and Supports gives parents the tools to conquer the stuff, so that they can spend less time filling out forms, and more time loving their children exactly as they are. With over a decade of experience navigating these systems for her own child, author Kelley Coleman presents key information, templates, and wisdom alongside practical advice from over 40 experts, covering topics such as diagnosis, working with your medical team, insurance, financial planning, disability rights and advocacy, and individualized education plans. Everything No One Tells You About Parenting a Disabled Child gives parents the tools they need to stop wasting unnecessary time, money, and stress. If you need to know how to actually do the things, this book is for you. -
Marcus Vega No Habla Español / Marcus Vega Doesn't Speak Spanish
La búsqueda de su padre lleva a un joven a Puerto Rico en esta emotiva novela juvenil, perfecta para los fans de libros como Ghost y See You in the Cosmos. Marcus Vega mide seis pies de altura, pesa 180 libras y luce un incipiente bigote. Cuando tienes esta apariencia y apenas estás en octavo grado, te conviertes en una figura imponente y, al mismo tiempo, en un blanco fácil. Después de un altercado en la escuela que resulta en una suspensión para Marcus, su madre decide que es hora de un cambio de ambiente. Los lleva a él y a su hermano menor a Puerto Rico para pasar una semana con parientes a quienes apenas recuerdan o que nunca han conocido. Sin embargo, Marcus no puede concentrarse, ya que sabe que su padre, quien abandonó sus vidas hace diez años, se encuentra en algún lugar de la isla. Así da inicio al increíble viaje de Marcus, una serie de peripecias que lo llevarán a recorrer todo Puerto Rico en busca de su esquivo homónimo. Marcus no sabe si algún día se reunirá con su padre, pero lo que finalmente descubre cambia su vida. Además, en el camino, aprende un poco de español. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION One boy's search for his father leads him to Puerto Rico in this moving middle-grade novel, for fans of Ghost and See You in the Cosmos. Marcus Vega is six feet tall, 180 pounds, and the owner of a premature mustache. When you look like this and you're only in the eighth grade, you're both a threat and a target. After a fight at school leaves Marcus facing suspension, Marcus's mom decides it's time for a change of environment. She takes Marcus and his younger brother to Puerto Rico to spend a week with relatives they don't remember or have never met. But Marcus can't focus knowing that his father--who walked out of their lives ten years ago--is somewhere on the island. So begins Marcus's incredible journey, a series of misadventures that take him all over Puerto Rico in search of his elusive namesake. Marcus doesn't know if he'll ever find his father, but what he ultimately discovers changes his life. And he even learns a bit of Spanish along the way. -
The Sign for Home
When a young DeafBlind man learns the girl he thought was lost forever might still be out there, he embarks on a life-changing journey to find her--and his freedom. Arlo Dilly is young, handsome, and eager to meet the right girl. He also happens to be DeafBlind, a Jehovah's Witness, and under the strict guardianship of his controlling uncle and unscrupulous Tactile ASL interpreter. His chances of finding someone to love seem slim to none. And yet, it happened once before: many years ago, at a boarding school for the Deaf. Arlo met the love of his life--a mysterious girl with onyx eyes and beautifully expressive hands which told him the most amazing stories. But tragedy struck, and their love was lost forever. Or so Arlo thought. After years spent nursing his broken heart, Arlo attends a writing class where a new unfiltered interpreter is assigned to him. Against the wishes of his guardians, the new interpreter provides Arlo with access to a world he had no idea existed. Memories from his past are unlocked. Soon he wonders if the hearing people he was supposed to trust have been lying to him all along, and if his lost love might be found again. No longer willing to accept what others tell him, Arlo convinces his new best friends (his gay interpreter and a rebellious Belgian barista) to set off on a journey to learn the truth. Despite the many forces working against him, Arlo will stop at nothing to find the girl who got away and experience all of life's joyful possibilities. "Tender, hilarious and decidedly uplifting," (BookPage), The Sign for Home is a "poignant...riveting" (Los Angeles Times), fresh and charming romance that you won't soon forget.