The Schneider Family Book Awards

The award is donated by Dr. Katherine Schneider, and honors an author or illustrator for a book that embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences.

I only read the picture books, but I was able to find several and ended up reading more. I am going to go over my reading choices, and then give some thoughts at the end.

Six Dots: A Story of Young Louis Braille, written by Jen Bryant and illustrated by Boris Kulikov

This was one of the best written and most interesting. It's not unusual to know that Louis Braille invented the alphabet that allows vision-impaired people to read with their fingers, but in addition to learning more about him, you see how family and community support helped him and how existing patterns inspired him. Excellent.

The Pirate of Kindergarten, written by George Ella Lyon and illustrated by Lynne Avril

One of the most interesting things for me was seeing how it could be difficult for a child with a perceptual difference (in this case, double vision) to know that there is a difference and to know how to communicate it. A vision test was helpful, but if they had only tested both eyes separately, it could still have been missed. Good food for thought. A bit where she had to navigate chairs, and she knew that only half of them were real but not which ones, really hit home.

Silent Days, Silent Dreams, written and illustrated by Allen Say

This focuses on the life and art of James Castle, born profoundly deaf and probably also dyslexic. In this case there was more of a lack of family support, but they could not stop him from making art.

Back to Front and Upside Down, written and illustrated by Claire Alexander

This could apply to dyslexia, or a child just temporarily behind the rest of their class. It works well for helping children know that it is okay to have trouble and to ask for help, and is written with a lot of empathy.

Emmanuel's Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah, written by Laurie Ann Thompson and illustrated by Sean Qualls

This is a truly inspiring story, as Emmanuel finds ways to get around, make friends, and help support his family, then to raise awareness to help others with disabilities. I really liked the illustrations. Looking more at Sean Qualls' work there are some really interesting titles, so I look forward to seeing more by him.

The Deaf Musicians, written by Pete Seeger and Paul DuBois Jacobs, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie

This was not as based in real experience, and I think suffered a bit for that, but I know that there are musical elements that come into play with sign language, and that rhythm is not limited to hearing, so those points are valid.

A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin, written by Jen Bryant and illustrated by Melissa Sweet

Pippin's story, which includes retraining his ability to do art after losing the use of his arm to a war injury, is inspiring. While his art is very respected in the illustrations, I am not sure that the book will do well at capturing children's imaginations. It might be better to rework the material for an older audience.

Piano Starts Here: The Young Art Tatum, written and illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker

Some of the same issues as the book on Horace Pippin, though there is one scene with lightning bugs and a summer night that is captured beautifully.

A Boy and a Jaguar, written by Allen Rabinowitz and illustrated by Catia Chen

Allen Rabinowitz is himself a stutterer who works for jaguar conservation, and this is his story of learning how to work with his speech impediment and follow his dream. Very inspiring, and a breathtaking ending.

Django, written and illustrated by Bonnie Christensen

I saved this one for last for reading, because I love Django Reinhardt and I wanted to love this book, but it was not as magical as I'd hoped.

One of my big takeaways from the reading was that the amount of support someone with disabilities receives can make a huge difference. There were some wonderful families and some terrible families here.

The other thing - and it was probably evident from how I wrote about them - was that the quality of the books varied widely. It doesn't even mean that the worse ones were bad. Sometimes there are little things, like a paragraph that is too long for a children's book, or an interruption of the flow, where reading the book is fine but you wouldn't expect it to win awards. This was especially noticeable with the music books for me, because in other awards lists I saw some fantastic methods for conveying music visually, and it wasn't quite happening here.

I feel bad saying that, because it was clear that many of the writers and illustrators had a lot of passion for their subjects, and I know they wanted to impart those same feelings.

Personal experience matters. In the case of A Boy and a Jaguar, he did not come across as an experienced children's writer, but because it was his own story, that elevated it. I think The Deaf Musicians needed people who were deaf, not just people who cared about deafness, as the writers.

It seems clear that if books that are just okay are winning this award, there probably aren't that many books to choose from each year, so that brings us back to representation. I know there are lots of different types of disabilities and experiences with them, and there is clearly a lot that is not being covered. We should do better than that, but also to do it well, more people with disabilities need to be encouraged to tell their own stories. Because children's books have some specific needs, there can be room for mentoring here.

Let me repeat that representation matters, because we are going to spend some time on that tomorrow.