Uses of disability in literature are often problematic and harmful to disabled people. This is also true, of course, in children's and young adult literature, but interestingly, when disability is paired and confused with adolescence in narratives, interesting, complex arcs often arise. In From Wallflowers to Bulletproof Families: The Power of Disability in Young Adult Narratives, author Abbye E. Meyer examines different ways authors use and portray disability in literature. She demonstrates how narratives about and for young adults differ from the norm. With a distinctive young adult voice based in disability, these narratives allow for readings that conflate and complicate both adolescence and disability. Throughout, Meyer examines common representations of disability and more importantly, the ways that young adult narratives expose these tropes and explicitly challenge harmful messages they might otherwise reinforce. She illustrates how two-dimensional characters allow literary metaphors to work, while forcing texts to ignore reality and reinforce the assumption that disability is a problem to be fixed. She sifts the freak characters, often marked as disabled, and she reclaims the derided genre of problem novels arguing they empower disabled characters and introduce the goals of disability-rights movements. The analysis offered expands to include narratives in other media: nonfiction essays and memoirs, songs, television series, films, and digital narratives. These contemporary works, affected by digital media, combine elements of literary criticism, narrative expression, disability theory, and political activism to create and represent the solidarity of family-like communities.

From two-time National Book Award nominee Melissa Fay Greene comes a profound and surprising account of dogs on the front lines of rescuing both children and adults from the trenches of grief, emotional, physical, and cognitive disability, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The Underdogs tells the story of Karen Shirk, felled at age twenty-four by a neuromuscular disease and facing life as a ventilator-dependent, immobile patient, who was turned down by every service dog agency in the country because she was "too disabled." Her nurse encouraged her to tone down the suicidal thoughts, find a puppy, and raise her own service dog. Karen did this, and Ben, a German shepherd, dragged her back into life. "How many people are stranded like I was," she wondered, "who would lead productive lives if only they had a dog?" A thousand state-of-the-art dogs later, Karen Shirk's service dog academy, 4 Paws for Ability, is restoring broken children and their families to life. Long shunned by scientists as a manmade, synthetic species, and oft- referred to as "Man's Best Friend" almost patronizingly, dogs are finally paid respectful attention by a new generation of neuroscientists and animal behaviorists. Melissa Fay Greene weaves the latest scientific discoveries about our co-evolution with dogs with Karen's story and a few exquisitely rendered stories of suffering children and their heartbroken families. Written with characteristic insight, humanity, humor, and irrepressible joy, what could have been merely touching is a penetrating, compassionate exploration of larger questions: about our attachment to dogs, what constitutes a productive life, and what can be accomplished with unconditional love.

While the written word is an important means of communication among people, the technological revolution has increased the demands on mental processes involved in the processing of written information, which endangers the quality of life of people who have reading difficulties and are not completely functionally literate. Educational technologies have vastly improved in past decades, especially in the realm of aiding individuals with development and learning disorders. With these learning technologies becoming more mainstream, individuals struggling to maintain a sense of normalcy in everyday life now have a chance to overcome various barriers. Dyslexia and Accessibility in the Modern Era: Emerging Research and Opportunities provides emerging research on a literacy portal that offers the virtual background for the support and strengthening of reading skills and for leading the user while using the internet. The book also creates a tool based on user feedback with instructions on how to adapt current tools to meet the accessibility requirements for people with dyslexia. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as e-learning, lifelong learning, and neurodevelopment disabilities, this book is ideally designed for teachers, software developers, academics, researchers, students, and learning professionals.