An Underrepresented Minority

After reading the articles that were assigned for class tomorrow, I began to think about how under represented disabilities are in children's literature. When I was reading the article by Tal entitled Swimming the Mainstream: A Discussion of Criteria for Evaluating Children’s Literature about Disabilities, I was amazed at the statistics that were shown. In this article, it said “in 1977….identified 311 books portraying people with disabilities published in the US in the previous thirty-six year (Tal 163).” Of all of the books that have published in the previous thirty-six years, I can bet that millions have been published and it is sad to think that only 311 have been published in regards to disabilities. After reading Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko, a disability of a young girl named Natalie is evenly displayed. This book shows a great example of a disability and that way that Natalie and the people around her respond to it. I know that people can make a difference in this realm of books. Joan K. Blaska did indeed make a difference in this minority group. She put together a series of books in which display disabilities. She also “developed teaching strategies for teachers and other professionals who use the books with preschool to third grade children (Williams).” This series of books creates an easy place to students to find things about disabilities. It is really sad that the disability genre is underrepresented and with enough information and the right people, we can make a change! It’s time to start!!