A collage of book covers with an illustration of multiple teens with disabilities. Text reads YA Disability Pride Month.

A list of books and graphic novels that portray and celebrate teen characters with disabilities.


Compiled by:
Tyana H., Fern S.
Brave Enough

Kati Gardner
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Gardner)

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.


Breathe and Count Back from Ten

Natalia Sylvester
(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.


Cursed

Karol Ruth Silverstein
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Silvers)

Ricky struggles with her recent juvenile inflammatory disease diagnosis, which comes amid family upheaval and challenges at school.


Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to be an Ally

Emily Ladau
(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.


The Disability Experience: Working Toward Belonging

Hannalora Leavitt
(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.


Happily Ever Afters

Elise Bryant
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Bryant)

Tessa Johnson has never felt like the protagonist in her own life. She's rarely seen herself reflected in the pages of the romance novels she loves. The only place she's a true leading lady is in her own writing--in the swoony love stories she shares only with Caroline, her best friend and #1 devoted reader.


History is All You Left Me

Adam Silvera
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Silvera)

Secrets are revealed as OCD-afflicted Griffin grieves for his first love, Theo, who died in a drowning accident.


Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus

Dusti Bowling
(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.


Lakelore

Anna-Marie McLemore
(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?


Love from A to Z

S.K. Ali
(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.


The Many Half-lived Lives of Sam Sylvester

Maya MacGregor
(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.


One for All

Lillie Lainoff
(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.


Otherbound

Corinne Duyvis
(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.


Queens of Geek

Jen Wilde
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Wild)

Australian friends Charlie, Taylor and Jamie are in San Diego for their first ever "SupaCon." Charlie's a vlogger/actress promoting her first movie. Taylor's brain is wired differently, making her fear change. And there's one thing in her life she knows will never change. And there's one thing in her life she knows will never change: her friendship with her best guy friend Jamie.


The Reckless Kind

Carly Heath
(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.


Sick Kids in Love

Hannah Moskowitz
(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.


The Silence Between Us

Alison Gervais
(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.


A Time to Dance

Padma Venkatraman
(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.


Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens

Marieke Nijkamp
- Editor
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Unbroke)

An anthology of stories in various genres, each featuring disabled characters and written by disabled creators.


The Weight of Our Sky

Hanna Alkaf
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Hannaal)

Amidst the Chinese-Malay conflict in Kuala Lumpur in 1969, sixteen-year-old Melati must overcome prejudice, violence, and her own OCD to find her way back to her mother.


Where You See Yourself

Claire Forrest
(Young Adult Fiction - Y Forrest)

Effie Galanos' goals for her senior year include her navigating her way through her high school that is not really wheelchair-friendly, getting into the perfect college, and getting her crush Wilder to accompany her to the prom--but by spring she is beginning to see herself entirely differently.


Wonderstruck

Brian Selznick
(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.


Graphic Novels
Avatar: The Last Airbender - Toph Beifong's Metalbending Academy

Faith Erin Hicks
(Juvenile Graphic Novels - J-GN Avatar The Last Airbender Toph Beifongs Metalbending Academy)

Things are looking bright at the Beifong Metalbending Academy! But after all the adventures Toph's had with Aang, Sokka, Zuko, and Katara, the whole thing feels a bit dull. Luckily, Sokka and Suki come to visit and reintroduce some familiar faces from their wandering days. And while out and about to celebrate, Toph discovers something that just might put the sparkle back in her eye...


El Deafo

Cece Bell
(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.


The Fire Never Goes Out

ND Stevenson
(Graphic Novels - GN 741.5092 Stevenson Ste)

In a collection of personal comics that span eight years of her young adult life, author-illustrator ND Stevenson charts the highs and lows of being a creative human in the world.


Komi Can't Communicate

Tomohito Oda
(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.


The Oracle Code

Marieke Nijkamp
(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.


Shino Can't Say Her Name

Shūzō Oshimi
(Manga - MANGA Shinoca Oshimi)

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.