Disabling Characters ― Representations of Disability in Young Adult Literature

Disabling Characters provides detailed analyses of selected young adult (YA) novels and short stories. It looks at the relative agency of the disabled character, the behavior of the other characters, the environment in which the character must live, the assumptions that seem to be underlying certain scenes, and the extent to which the book challenges or perpetuates an unsatisfactory status quo.

Patricia A. Dunn received her doctorate from the University at Albany. She is an associate professor in Stony Brook University’s English Teacher Education Program. She is the author of Learning Re-Abled: The Learning Disability Controversy and Composition Studies, as well as a number of articles on disability. In 2013, she received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.