Article Analysis

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The article "Exploring Representations of Characters with Disabilities in Library Books" is conveying the importance of literature in a child’s development as well as what is being portrayed in the book. Reading helps develop children’s intellectual, social-emotional and personal development. It creates their ability to create relationships, see others perspectives, communicate, and all in all make sense of the world. With so many changes in the population and the diversity of it, it is important for schools and the community to reflect these changes in a positive way. The article focused on how represented children with disabilities are in literature. They described how many books portray children with disabilities as supportive characters rather than the main one. Also, books tend to have children with disabilities make miraculous recoveries but these disabilities are normally permanent. It creates an unrealistic idea of these disabilities and thus not beneficial for teaching children about them.
With this in mind, the writers decided to research how prevalent these books are in the libraries in a certain area. Also, they wanted to test their quality such as language, appropriate content, vocabulary, etc. They found a total of 205 children’s books that portray children with disabilities in the public libraries in the Midwest area. Of these 205, they found 102 that had the qualities listed above. They then examined these 102 books to look for more in depth qualities. For example, they looked for stereotypes such as children with disabilities with sad faces or frail. All in all, they found all the books to be age appropriate and represented characters with disabilities in a way that highlighted their strengths and inclusion. However, there were portions that contained stereotypical language and had a poor insight into the daily lives of those with disabilities. The researchers highlighted 21 books that had very high scores and are recommended for families and teachers. They are as follows:
 1. Dina the Deaf Dinosaur- Carole Addabbo
2. My Pal, Victor/Mi Amigo, Victor- Diane Bertrand
3. The Night Search- Kate Chamberlin
4. Be Quiet, Marina!- Kirsten DeBear
5. Best Friends- Sandi Hill
6. A Very Special Sister- Dorothy Hoffman
7. Max's Fun Day- Adria F. Klein 
8. Cookie- Linda Kneeland
9. Jungle School- Elizabeth Laird & Roz Davison
10. Special People, Special Ways- Arlene Maguire
11. I Can, Can You?- Marjorie W. Pitzer
12. Me, Hailey- Sheri Plucker
13. Extraordinary Friends- Fred Rogers
14. The Deaf Musicians- Pete Seeger & Paul D. Jacobs
15. Peter and Friends at Camp- Rosanna Scott
16. All Kinds of Friends, Even Green
17. Best Friend on Wheels- Debra Shirley
18. Kami and the Yaks- Andrea Stryer 
19. Helping Sophia- Anastasia Suen
20. The Garden Wall- Phyllis Limbacher Tildes
21. My Friend Isabelle- Eliza Woloson
These books are so important for creating a positive perception of children with disabilities. It will lead to positive attitudes towards children with disabilities and how they choose to treat them. The messages that books give to children have a big impact on the way they treat others and themselves. Exposing them to books about children with disabilities or people that can be perceived differently, will be beneficial to how they deal with these people. It is also important to review the content of these books beforehand too to make sure the characters are being portrayed in a positive light. Also, that the stories and problems are realistic for these characters rather than creating unwanted stereotypes.
I think this article is very informative and enlightening. It is helpful to see research being done for groups that may be overlooked or overshadowed. We want to make sure our children are being exposed to insightful reading and thus developing to be socially inept members of society. We want to instill positive social skills as well as positive attitudes towards all kinds of people. Our world is so diverse and it is harmful to kids if we are exposing them to just certain things or one way of thinking. This article sheds some light on how to appropriately instill these values and attitudes in young minds through literature.

Citation: Price, C., Ostrosky, M., & Mouzourou, C. (2016). “Exploring Representations of Characters with Disabilities in Library Books”. Early Childhood Education Journal, 44(6), 563-572. doi:10.1007/s10643-015-0740-3

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