Thread by @Inadarkwood

In 2008, Scope asked disabled children for their views on books. Here's what they had to say. To quote the kids, 'we think there should be more disabled people in books.'

youtube.com/v/x_7zLhaUoNI&…

Subtitles are in the video, but they're a bit difficult to read, as the video is 240p!

'I like this book because it shows a girl wearing splints, like me!'

'This boy has a wheelchair like me.'

'I like this book because there's a girl that has a hand splint in it.'

'This is like me in my wheelchair.'

The joy and the heartbreak of this video is that you can see, in real time, the excitement and the delight when the kids point to people who are like them on the page. Like they say, 'We want more books that are like these.'

There was some doubt in my earlier threads (featuring what disabled and nondisabled kids had said about books) about whether the kids were capable of saying what they were quoted as saying. Well, here's a video - irrefutable proof of what disabled kids want in the books they read

Here's the thread on what disabled kids had to say about disability in books. The quotes are from 1962, 1995, 2008 and 2021.

https://twitter.com/Inadarkwood/status/1358078012693106689?s=20

And here's a companion thread, featuring what nondisabled kids had to say about disability in books in 2006.

https://twitter.com/Inadarkwood/status/1359202899646173190?s=20

I had to rummage around the code of Web Archive to find this video (as the plugin from 2008 no longer worked). I'm glad I was able to find what these kids had to say and preserve it, even if it's only in a small way.

I'm still thinking about this video. Like Catherine says, 'we want more books like these...and we all want more Deaf and disabled people.' This video was filmed in 2008, and all the kids would be grown-ups now. How few books did these kids see themselves in as they grew up?

Thirteen years later, disabled kids are STILL asking to be included in books, and largely being met with cowering silence or excuses from the publishing world.

That fact that these kids had to desperately look for themselves in books like I did is infuriating, and very little has changed in the thirteen years since these kids said 'we want more books like these...and we all want more Deaf and disabled people.' 😔