Our Library team has curated a collection of memoirs and stories that celebrate disability and diversity.
Many of these stories reflect a firsthand experience with disability that shows us how important it is to have inclusion and access for everyone.
You can share these stories to spark discussion and begin to understand other communities.
These are:
- stories to share with young children
- fictional stories on disability for junior and teens
- memoirs for adults.
All of these stories represent people with a disability by what they can do, not by what they can’t.
Memoirs
- A different kind of seeing: my journey by Marie Younan with Jill Sanguinetti
- A flower between the cracks: a memoir of love, hope and disability by Helen Sage
- Able* by Dylan Alcott with Grantlee Kieza*
- Always looking up: the adventures of an incurable optimist by Michael J Fox
- Anything is possible* by Cosentino with Hazel Flynn
- Blind optimist: the life of Lawrie McCredie by Di Websdale-Morrissey
- Best foot forward by Adam Hills
- Born at the right time by Ron McCallum
- Choir man by Jonathon Welch
- Diving into glass* by Caro Llewelyn
- Don’t worry, he won’t get far on foot by John Callahan
- Everything to live for by Turia Pitt
- From the ground up by John P Coutis
- Finding a way by Graeme Innes
- Far from the tree: parents, children and the search for identity by Andrew Solomon
- How far can you go?: my 25 year quest to walk again by John Maclean with Mark Tabb
- Love without limits by Luke Vujicic
- Laughing at my nightmare by Shane Burcaw
- Look me in the eye: my life with Asperger’s* by John Elder Robison
- My left foot by Christy Brown
- Nujeen: one girl’s incredible journey from war-torn Syria in a wheelchair by Nujeen Mustafa with Christina Lamb
- The diving bell and the butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
- Three-quarter man by Sam Bramham
- The story of my life* by Helen Keller
- Portrait of the artist’s mother: dignity, creativity and disability by Fiona Place
- Unmasked by Turia Pitt
- Unconquerable: the Invictus spirit by Boris Starling
Picture books
- Amazing by Steve Antony
- Animals: knowledge you can touch by DK braille concept
- Looking after Louis by Lesley Ely
- The perfect project: a book about autism by Tracy Packiam Alloway
- Some girls by Nelly Thomas
- Some boys by Nelly Thomas
- What the jackdaw saw by Julia Donaldson
- We’re all wonders by R J Palacio
Junior fiction
El Deafo* by Cece Bell
Out of my mind* by Sharon M. Draper
The Bubble Boy by Stewart Foster
The theory of hummingbirds by Michelle Kadarusman
The thing about Oliver* by Deborah Kelly
Roll with it by Jamie Sumner
Wonder* by R.J. Palacio
Teen fiction
A quiet kind of thunder by Sara Barnard
A curse so dark and lonely by Brigid Kemmerer
How to be luminous* by Harriet Reuter Hapgood
How we roll by Natasha Friend
Not if I see you first by Eric Lindstrom
Peta Lyre's rating normal* by Anna Whateley
Please don’t hug me by Kay Kerr
Sick kids in love* by Hannah Moskowitz
The boy who steals houses by C. G. Drews
The first third* by Will Kostakis
The silence between us* by Alison Gervais
This is not a love scene* by S.C Megale
More recommended reading
Want more reading suggestions? You can always speak to our library staff, who will help you find new authors based on your preferences. Come into the library or call us to find your next favourite read.
You can also visit our Booklists page for more reading recommendations, or our Book Groups page for everything you need for book groups.