“Beth and I have been shouting about this subject for well over two decades now, helping . . . to raise awareness of the need for more and better authentic representation in children’s books, particularly around disability”, says Alex Strick who is standing at the podium with her colleague Beth Cox. They joined forces back in 2005 and since then made it their mission to make the market for Children’s titles less too one-dimensional when it comes to character diversity. Since then, much has changed. In their talk, they highlight the amazing results that previous projects like Representing Realities were able to achieve, seeing an increase in ethnic minority representation of 15% in the past five years of research. Their focus now lies on disability representation, as they’re working alongside experts with their own lived experiences of the disabilities that help to give voices to those that need it: individuals living with a physical disability, learning difficulties, a mental health condition, neurodivergence, chronic illness, visual difference or sensory impairment.

In a publishing landscape that has already shifted quite a lot since the debate gained wider interest, Cox and Strick now launch Disabled Realities, no longer needing to shout quite so loudly as they have been in the past.

Drawing from previous success stories, the methodology for Disabled Realities will follow suit from what has been proven affective in the Representing Realities surveys and will be refined and adapted as needed by the expert steering group in the process. Cox and Strick, both identified as neurodivergent themselves, are going to take a back seat on the project and carry on their support from behind the scenes.

But what can a project like Disabled Realities look like? I, for my part, started picturing adventure stories that live by a completely new set of rules: making heroes out of ordinary kids that aren’t special in the traditional “I-am-the-Chosen-One”-sort of way, but are ordinary in the sense that they represent real lived experiences of disabled people and still make for a relatable protagonist. Not only for disabled readers but also for everyone else. These ‘Ordinary Heroes’ may encounter very similar evils to any other hero, but approach them in a completely different way, facing both the same and new challenges on their journey. Imagine Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but Greg struggles through his school days because of dyslexia. Imagine Harry Potter and The En-chanted Wheelchair. Or an autistic Alice, who has an even harder time reading the bizarre social cues of Wonderland (this one isn’t too hard to picture, is it?). Teaching children about accessibility and social barriers through obstacles in their favourite character’s stories could be so much easier than raising them to be ignorant adults who need to catch up because they have only seen their own stories in the books they read at a young age.

The possibilities for representing minority “characters with agency, who are identifiable, relata-ble, nuanced, varied and . . . central to the narrative” (CLPE 2022, p.9) are endless and just waiting to be realised, as Strick and Cox stress in their speech. It just takes an open-minded and enthusiastic industry to help see that change manifest into reality — a disabled reality.

References:

Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE). 2022. Reflecting Realities: Survey of Ethnic Representation within UK Children’s Literature 2017–2021. [Online]. Available at: https://clpe.org.uk/research/clpe-survey-ethnic-representation-within-uk-childrens-literature-2017-2022-november-2022 [11 October 2023].

Cox, B. and Strick, A. 2023. The Bookseller Children’s Conference. Quality and Quantity: New Conversations about Disability Representation. [Guest Speaker Presentation] 5 October 2023. London: County Hall, Waterloo.

Illustration: Diane Ewan. Available at: https://clpe.org.uk/research/clpe-survey-ethnic-representation-within-uk-childrens-literature-2017-2022-november-2022?gclid=CjwKCAjw-KipBhBtEiwAWjgwrGJDaAmuB_uj0MkP5ibFfQpPycTLQ4PMh-A9RlzgddQcJzR1VdJQThoC_7AQAvD_BwE [14 October 2023]