It's Disability December!

It's Disability December! What is it, might you ask? A reading challenge to promote books with disability representation. Below are ten books to consider reading!

1. Breathe and Count Back from Ten by Natalia Sylvester: Veronica, a Peruvian American teen with hip dysplasia, auditions to become a mermaid at a Central Florida theme park in the summer before her senior year, all while figuring out her first real boyfriend and how to feel safe in her own body. 

2. Darius the Great is not Okay by Adib Khorram: Clinically-depressed Darius Kellner, a high school sophomore, travels to Iran to meet his grandparents, but it is their next-door neighbor, Sohrab, who changes his life.

3. Diet Soda Club by Chaz Hayden: When his mother leaves, 17-year-old Reed must care for his little sister, Bea, who has a life-threatening condition, and to do so, starts making and selling fake IDs so they can survive, which could lead to major consequences for both their futures if he’s caught. 

4. Reggie and Delilah's Year of Falling by Elise Bryant: Pretending to be someone they’re not, Delilah, who is unable to open up, and Reggie, a D&D Dungeon Master who is role-playing someone confident, fall for a version of each other that doesn’t really exist when fate keeps throwing them together.

5. Sick Kids in Love by Hannah Moskowitz: 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.

6. Sunrise Nights by Jeff Zentner: Jude loves photography, and he’s good at it, too. Between his parents’ divorce and his anxiety, being behind a camera is the only time his mind is quiet. Florence is confronting the premature end of her dance career as a degenerative eye disease begins to steal her balance. She’s having a hard time letting go. The two meet at Sunrise Night, their sleepaway art camp’s dusk-to-dawn closing celebration, and decide to take a chance on each other. Their one rule: No contact for a year after the sun has risen. Over the course of three Sunrise Nights, will Florence and Jude find a deeper connection and learn who they are—and who they could be together?

7. The Fall of Whit Rivera by Crystal Maldonado: Forced to organize the fall formal together, frenemies and exes Whit and Zay find sparks still flying between them and wonder if their feud has been a big misunderstanding all along. 

8. The Loudest Silence by Sydney Langford: Told in two voices, follows the friendship between queer teens Casey, a singer who is grappling with sudden hearing loss, and soccer captain Hayden, whose Generalized Anxiety Disorder weighs on his every move, after they bond over their shared dream of a music career.

9. Where You See Yourself by Claire Forrest: Effie Galanos' goals for her senior year include her navigating her way through her high school that is not really wheelchair-friendly, getting into the perfect college, and getting her crush Wilder to accompany her to the prom--but by spring she is beginning to see herself entirely differently.

10. You Don't Have a Shot by Racquel Marie: Seventeen-year-old Valentina jeopardizes her future when she gets into an altercation with her rival, Leticia, during a soccer game, so the two girls must co-captain a soccer team to redeem themselves and what starts as a shaky alliance of necessity blossoms into something more.

You can check out many more book recommendations on Instagram using the hashtag #DisabilityDecember.