When you’re speaking to directly to an audience of mostly children, especially ones who either can’t read independently yet, or are just learning to read, it’s understandably easy to fall into a lot of simple traps. A lot of picture books I’ve encountered are either too babyish or too preachy, too oversimplified or not simplified enough; Many times it feels as if some authors have not interacted with an actual human child in their own recent memory, because they speak in ways kids don’t speak, they use examples that kids can’t really relate to, or their ear for how to interact with kids is just… off somehow.
When it comes to picture books about disabled people? Everything I just said is multiplied one hundred-fold. Suddenly, because of the ‘sensitive’ nature of the topic of disabilities (insert eyeroll here), there’s a euphemism or metaphor on every page (young children are still developmentally quite literal thinkers, and such language often leaves them more confused than before) or a cutesy-baby voiced character is handholding kids through nonsensical definitions of things they could actually use a good, thorough, introduction to. It’s a delicate needle an author must thread: being able to present whatever concepts they’re trying to present without clobbering kids over the head them or straying too close into unfortunate inspirational porn territory for comfort.
Luckily, TikTok content creator -& debut author- Sean Gold manages to thread that needle quite beautifully in his new book, The ABCs of Disabilities. Accompanied by colorful, fun and diverse illustrations by Anna and Daniel Clark, Gold’s clear & concise storytelling, as well as the imaginative liberties nearly all alphabet book authors must employ (x being for eXpert, for example), have created an excellent parent and classroom resource.
By balancing the introduction of ‘new to me’ concepts and concepts that are familiar and comfortable to all kids, Gold creates learning opportunities about disability outside the high-pressure “mommy why does that lady get to sit down all the time” target aisle situations most parents too often find themselves in.* The familiar concepts of teeth brushing, eating, friends, joy, sleep, are interwoven with things like mobility & other assistive devices, audiobooks & glasses as accessibility tools, hearing dogs and feeding tubes as things that will likely lead to broader investigations and more interesting conversations & questions.
Gold does a great job of breaking down both the new and the familiar concepts, in interesting ways. For example, when speaking about C for Communicating, the author makes sure to point out that communicating is both talking and listening, and then breaks down some issues disabled people might have with either of those two things. That’s a bigger concept than most picture book age kids are used to thinking about, but it’s presented as a simple thing, so they can now interact with it that way.
He also – as a Disabled author himself – does a great job of providing disabled kids with respect & autonomy and understanding that is sometimes lacking from outsiders’ perspectives. I’m not saying only a Disabled author would write, under Q is for Questions “If you have a disability and someone asks if they can ask you a question, it’s okay to stop and think about it. It’s okay to say, ‘No, not right now,’ or to say, ‘Sure!'”, I’m just saying I’ve never seen a non-disabled writer even think about disabled kids answering invasive questions in quite this way before, and giving them the space to be like “absolutely not” if they’re not feeling it. When we talk about representation being important? This is what we mean.
Even when talking about things that might be brand new to concepts to most kids, Gold is always approaching those things in the most respectful ways, & all of the language used in the book is inclusive, at all times. So he’s never singling out a particular disability, or disability aid or accommodation as anything other than just a different, completely normal way for a person to do things. Which is an essential concept to help young kids master: Young kids developmentally believe in fairness in a way that no other age group really does, and we could argue about whether or not that gets trained out of us sociologically or not (but I would win, because it absolutely does), but about the same time kids are starting to understand that people outside of themselves are people, with feelings and wants and hurts? That growing sense of empathy initiates a kind of hyper-awareness of fairness. It’s why siblings in 5-10 yr age category will be very.particular.about.how.many.chocolate.chips.are.in.each.sibling’s.cookie, just as a totally random, not-at-all-from-real-life-example.
Their developmental definition and desire for equity, which we adults know is not the same thing as equality, comes a little bit later, but requires the scaffolding of empathy and equality in order to correctly be established. So seeing disabled people – and, in this book, all the characters are children, so specifically disabled kids – as fully human, just like them but different in some ways too, is a vital skill that’s actually? Quite difficult to teach. You can’t drill empathy the way you can your times tables, or the alphabet. But you can expose kids to the need for empathy; you can saturate their environment with examples of empathy; you can roleplay and read stories and do class plays that all exemplify empathy, and that’s how they best learn about empathy, & integrate it within themselves.
Gold’s book encourages this on nearly every page ->
As a disabled, former Kindergarten, Reading & Pre-School teacher myself, I can’t say enough good things about Gold’s open, honest & creative Own-Voices approach to what is basically ‘Disability 101’ for the preschool set. He also includes excellent conversation starters at the end of the book, to further enable conversations around disability, and the illustrations include a little “Where’s Sean” Easter Egg hunt that most kids will find engaging as well. The book isn’t out until September, I received an ARC from the author, so put it on your fall resources lists, teachers! And parents, who don’t want to be ambushed in a Target aisle? You should do the same.
*Trust me when I say, as the lady who is ‘lucky’ enough to sit down all the time: I don’t mind that your kid is asking questions, especially if your response is appropriate and kind “looks like her body works differently than yours and mine and she needs it to get around. Pretty cool, huh?” as opposed to the more frequent response of harsh “shusshing” and embarrassed flushing, and frog-marching your three-year-old to the next aisle as if I can’t hear you tell them how rude it is to point out other people’s differences with a bunch of cereal boxes between us. I get it though: We were all taught NOT to comment on the differences. And an adult making stupid-ass request for my personal private medical situation? Is absolutely rude as shit. But I’m disabled former teacher, and I’m never gonna be mad at a kid for asking the most reasonable questions (Here is where I put the disclaimer, that disabled people are not a monolith and YMMV from disabled person to disabled person), so practice at home, learning about how sometimes people are made differently than us, and that’s ok too.
Also, I’m adding this to my CBR 16 Bingo Card, in the Dream Square, bc, as I wrote in my email to the author, this book goes on an ever-expending shelf of Own-Voices Disability picture books, which I never could have dreamed of waaaay back, all 24 years ago when I did my Master’s thesis on Disability rep in picture books.