Welcome

Welcome to Accessible Reads.

My name is Megan, and I currently write the blog Hearing Sparks, about my life with deafness, news about new hearing technology, and other geekery. I also love to read and work in a library. Over the course of writing my blog, one issue has come to be close to my heart - the issue of representation of people with various disabilities in literature.

One recent study really stuck with me. The study took a look at 131 books that had won the Newbery Medal and Honor book between 1975 and 2009. In the books, they found only 31 characters with a disability. A quote from this article really spoke to me: "[C]haracters with disabilities were most likely to be supporting characters and were often used to boost the emotional growth of those without disabilities rather than to develop in their own right."

I decided to start this blog to write about books I come across that feature a person with a disability. It may be deafness, blindness, mobility impairment, autism, or anything in between. The books may be children's books, young adult, or adult reading level, fiction or nonfiction. And the characters may be represented well - or not well at all.

I hope this blog provides interesting reading and maybe some interesting books for you to read as well.