A list of books and graphic novels that portray and celebrate teen characters with disabilities.
YA Disability Pride Month
Compiled by:
Tyana H., Fern S.
(Young Adult Fiction - Y)
Cason Martin is the youngest ballerina in the Atlanta Ballet Conservatory. She never really had a choice of whether she learned to dance or not. But that's about to change. Cason has been hiding an injury, and it's much worse than anyone imagines.
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Sylvest)
Verónica has had many surgeries to manage her disability. The best form of rehabilitation is swimming, so she spends hours in the pool, but not just to strengthen her body. Verónica wants to audition for Mermaid Cove, an attraction where professional mermaids perform in giant tanks.
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Silvers)
Ricky struggles with her recent juvenile inflammatory disease diagnosis, which comes amid family upheaval and challenges at school.
(Adult Nonfiction - 305.908 Lad)
A guide for how to be a thoughtful, informed ally to disabled people, with actionable steps for what to say and do (and what not to do) and how you can help make the world a more accessible place.
(Adult Nonfiction - 362.4 Lea)
This nonfiction book for teens provides a history of disability, describes types of disabilities and examines the challenges faced by people living with disabilities.
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Silvera)
Secrets are revealed as OCD-afflicted Griffin grieves for his first love, Theo, who died in a drowning accident.
(Juvenile Fiction - J Bowling)
New friends and a mystery help Aden, thirteen, adjust to middle school and life at a dying western theme park in a new state, where her being born armless presents many challenges.
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Mclemor)
Two non-binary teens are pulled into a magical world under a lake, but can they keep their worlds above water intact?
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Ali)
Adam and Zayneb meet in Doha, Qatar, during spring break and fall in love as both struggle to find a way to live their own truths.
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Macgreg)
An autistic nonbinary teen moves to a new town and school with the support of their loving father and finds friends in an LGBTQ+ club, but they all must come together to solve the decades-old murder of a teenage boy and confront the demons lurking in Sam's past.
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Lainoff)
In 1655, Tania is the daughter of a retired musketeer, but she is afflicted with extreme vertigo and subject to frequent falls. When her father is murdered, she finds that he has arranged for her to attend Académie des Mariées in Paris, which is less a school for would-be wives, than a fencing academy for girls.
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Duyvis)
A boy finds that every time he closes his eyes, he's drawn into the body of a mute servant girl from another world—a world that's growing increasingly more dangerous, and where many things are not as they seem.
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Heath)
It is 1904 and the partially deaf Asta Hedstrom is engaged to Nils, but she does not want to marry him: she would rather spend her time with her best friend Gunnar Fuglestad and his secret boyfriend, Erlend.
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Moskowi)
Isabel has one rule: no dating. It's easier-it's safer-it's better-for the other person. She's got rheumatoid arthritis. But then she meets another sick kid. He understands what it means to be sick.
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Gervais)
After moving to Colorado, deaf seventeen-year-old Maya is forced to attend a hearing school, where she must navigate a new life and prove that her lack of hearing will not stop her from pursuing her dreams.
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Venkatr)
In India, a girl who excels at Bharatanatyam dance refuses to give up after losing a leg in an accident.
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Frank)
In this novel in verse, two very different girls bond while hospitalized for Crohn's disease.
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Unbroke)
An anthology of stories in various genres, each featuring disabled characters and written by disabled creators.
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Selznic)
Having lost his mother and his hearing in a short time, twelve-year-old Ben leaves his Minnesota home in 1977 to seek the father he never knew in New York City, and meets there Rose, who is also longing for something missing from her life.
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Asphyxi)
Piper is tired of trying to conform. Her mom wants her to be "normal," to pass as hearing, to get a good job. But when she meets Marley, a new world opens up—one where Deafness is something to celebrate, and where resilience means taking action, building a community, and believing in something better.
Graphic Novels
(Juvenile Graphic Novels - J-GN 741.5092 Bell Bel)
Starting a new school is scary, even more so with a giant hearing aid strapped to your chest. At her old school, everyone in Cece's class was deaf. Here she is different. Cece makes a startling discovery. With the Phonic Ear she can hear her teacher not just in the classroom, but anywhere her teacher is in the school. This is power, maybe even superpower. Cece is on her way to becoming El Deafo, listener for all.
(Manga- MANGA Komican v. 1 Oda)
Socially anxious high school student Shoko Komi would love to make friends, but her shyness is interpreted as reserve, and the other students keep her at a distance.
(Graphic Novels - GN Nijkamp Oracle Code)
After a gunshot leaves her paralyzed, Barbara Gordon enters the Arkham Center for Independence, where Gotham's teens undergo physical and mental rehabilitation. Now using a wheelchair, Barbara must adapt to a new normal, but she cannot shake the feeling that something is dangerously amiss.
(Manga -)
High school can be a stressful time for many young people, unfortunately, things go wrong on Shino's first day, she fails to even say her name during her homeroom introduction. Ostracized and afraid she struggles to find her place in this new world.