Idiots: Stories about Mindedness and Mental Retardation is a book about four children and the people who, in many respects, define their humanity. Mindedness is a quality associated with humanity that receives little attention in the scientific literature of mental retardation. The children's stories are written against the prevailing glare of the diagnoses traditional canon. Confronting mental retardation as a socially constructed disease that implies having something less than a mind, this book speaks to the rewards awaiting those who are willing to look beyond the disciplinary boundaries that define the diagnosis.