Showing posts with label children with physical disabilities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label children with physical disabilities. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus

Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus by Dusti Bowling 262 pp.

Aven Green tells people she meets different outlandish stories about how she lost her arms when the truth is, she was born without them. When her father takes a job running a Wild West Theme Park in Arizona that has seen better days. Aven must leave the only life she has known to begin a new one in the desert. While Aven is mostly self-sufficient, using her feet in place of her hands to do necessary tasks, the idea of meeting a whole lot of strangers in a whole new school and being gawked at makes her nervous. She quickly finds a friend in Connor, a classmate with his own kind of disability and they, along with another "misfit" student, navigate their lives and discover many new things about themselves and secrets about the park. The audiobook was performed excellently by Karissa Vacker.

Monday, December 17, 2018

The War that Saved My Life

The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, 316 pages.
A Mark Twain Award nominee from 2015, I heard about this from a patron who had lost and paid for two library copies of the book, but was still enthusiastically recommending it as we sorted everything out. The story is told by Ada, a young girl living in London with her mother and her younger brother at the start of WWII. Ada cannot walk, she stays inside all the time, and her mother is awful. Ada can't really imagine a different life for herself, but she teaches herself to painfully stand and to take a few steps. When Ada discovers that Jamie, her younger brother, will be evacuated to the countryside because of the anticipated bombing, Ada is determined to go with him. Ada and Jamie's transformation during the course of the book is inspiring and moving.