Reviewed
by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite:
Firsts:
Coming Of Age Stories By People With Disabilities is a nonfiction anthology
edited by Belo Miguel Ciperiani. Ciperiani lost his vision when he was 27.
He
grew up looking forward to his weekly trip to the library where he would pick
up a new selection of audio books.
Popping the first one in his Discman for the
bus ride back home, he’d forget his surroundings and get lost in the newest
story.
One thing in particular bothered him; that was the depiction of disabled
characters in those stories.
It seemed as though the failings of those
characters were intricately linked to their disabilities.
The nonfiction
memoirs he read were equally unsatisfying as they were generally written by
people who had beaten the odds and regained their sight, hearing or the use of
their limbs.
Ciperiani gravitated to writing in part in reaction to his efforts
to find writers who could share the experiences of the disabled.
This book is
the result of his call for disabled authors to share their coming of age
experiences.
Out of the hundreds of submissions he received, he selected the
eleven stories that are found here.
Firsts: Coming Of Age Stories By People With Disabilities is one of those rare books you want to never end.
Firsts: Coming Of Age Stories By People With Disabilities is one of those rare books you want to never end.
I lost myself in each of the stories found within
this collection. Heidi Johnson-Wright’s short story, Life with Lexie, is the
perfect opening tale; one that anyone, able-bodied or not, would have a hard
time not relating to.
Heidi’s life went pear-shaped when she was nine years old
and rheumatoid arthritis left her totally dependent upon a mercurial and ill-tempered
mother, until that day when she went off to college.
Once I had begun reading
Johnson-Wright’s story, I was hooked into reading each of these marvelous and
inspirational stories.
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