COME ON A JOURNEY THROUGH CHILDHOOD with this anthology of twenty-two autobiographical stories from the very best writers in the disabled community.
'Honest, hopeful, hilarious and heartwarming.' Cerrie Burnell
From birthday parties, to navigating the sports field, to being given random free stuff, to juggling hospital visits alongside social lives . . .
These twenty-two true stories capture the highs and lows, the tears and laughter, the friendships and fallouts of growing up with a disability.
Whether you're disabled yourself, or know someone who is, or want to better understand the experience, this book is a window into the young lives of these disabled writers: their stories, in their own words.
Edited by James Catchpole, Lucy Catchpole and Jen Campbell. With contributions from Ali Abbas, Polly Atkin, Imani Barbarin, Jen Campbell, James Catchpole, Christa Couture, Carly Findlay, M. Leona Godin, Eugene Grant, Jan Grue, Matilda Feyisayo Ibini, Ilya Kaminsky, Sora J. Kasuga, Jessica Kellgren-Fozard, Elle McNicoll, Daniel Sluman, Nina Tame, Rebekah Taussig, Steven Verdile, Alex Wegman, Ashley Harris Whaley and Kendra Winchester. Illustrated by Sophie Kamlish.
Ilya Kaminsky was born in the former Soviet Union and is now an American citizen. He is the author of
Dancing in Odessa (2004) and
Deaf Republic (2019), which was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. He is coeditor of
The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry. He has received a Whiting Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and was named a finalist for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages.
James runs a children's literary agency with his wife Lucy in Oxford, England. He sometimes writes books about a child-version of himself called Joe - in picture books
What Happened to You? and
You're So Amazing!. He filled some of the time between being Joe's age and the age he is now, by being an amputee footballer and itinerant busker, two professions where it actively helps to have one leg.
Lucy Catchpole is the author of
Mama Car and co-author of
You're So Amazing! She's a full-time wheelchair user and has written about disability for the Guardian and the BBC, and more often on her Instagram @thecatchpoles, where she and James also post about children's books and family life with their two daughters.
Jen Campbell is an award-winning poet, and the bestselling author of fourteen books for adults and children, spanning fiction, nonfiction, poetry and picture books. Her titles include the Franklin and Luna series,
The Sister Who Ate Her Brothers and
The Beginning Of The World In The Middle Of The Night. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages. She is also an editor and a disability advocate, and she reviews books online, in print and on the radio. You can find her talking about reading, the history of fairy tales, and disability over on her YouTube channel, where she has a following of over 70,000. www.jen-campbell.co.uk.
Sophie Kamlish is an illustrator, animator and 3-time Paralympic athlete based in Bath, England.
She graduated from Kingston University in 2019 with a degree in Illustration and Animation.
Sophie has been obsessed with drawing from the start. She always has a pen on her - no napkin is safe. And given she despised every subject at school except Art, it came as no surprise to anyone that this is where she ended up.
She's illustrated for the BBC, and animated for both Channel 4 and The Royal Opera House. And in 2019, her final year animation was nominated for the London International Animation Festival - in which she discusses the pros and cons of life as an amputee.
Becoming an elite athlete was perhaps a little less predictable.
Competing for Great Britain in the 100m aged just 16 was certainly a shock - even to Sophie herself, as she'd never considered herself particularly sporty. But it's been a huge part of her life for over a decade.
Life as an athlete has taken her all over the world - her pencil case firmly packed alongside her prosthetic running blade.
