July is Disability Pride Month, a time to recognize and celebrate the ways in which people with disabilities contribute to the diverse fabric of our society. July marks the anniversary of the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.
Disability comes in many different forms, both visible and invisible. Disability Pride Month aims to end the marginalization of those with disabilities as well as the stigma around the term disability and instead encourage all people to recognize the value of a more inclusive world.
One important way to celebrate Disability Pride Month is through reading books featuring characters living with a variety of disabilities. Read on below for more books to read this month and all year long!

Early Readers
Sam’s Neighborhood
From award-winning author Patricia McCormick, comes a picture book based on the true story of how one little girl inspired everyone on her block to learn American Sign Language (ASL), and how it transformed the whole community in the process. Perfect for fans of I Walk with Vanessa by Kerascoët, Be Kind by Pat Zietlow Miller, as well as readers looking for stories centering deaf protagonists. Sam loves her neighborhood. She recognizes her neighbors and wants to be friends. They want to be friends with her too. But it can be hard for them to understand each other: Sam talks with her hands. Her neighbors talk with their words—though she notices, they rarely talk with each other. Then one day, something wonderful happens that brings them all together. With 21 ASL signs illustrated within and backmatter that goes into Sam’s real childhood story that inspired the book.
Middle Grade
Opal Watson: A Case Most Fowl
In this second book in the middle-grade mystery series based on the popular Pinna podcast, super sleuth Opal Watson teams up with a new friend to find a missing bird and unravels even more secrets about her family’s legendary history.
Opal’s schoolmate Piper has lost a beloved pet: a bird named Blizzard that disappeared while her family was moving into a new house. Opal and Frank agree to track down Blizzard, even though it means teaming up with Piper’s older brother, Jake, a former bully who claims he has changed his ways.
Meanwhile, Opal is still solving a mystery of her own: Who was Maude Watson—the woman whose picture she stumbled across in an old issue of the Chicago Defender newspaper—and how is she related to Opal?
As Opal and her friends investigate both cases, they discover that Blizzard is more than just a missing pet—and she’s not the only one missing. Meanwhile, Maude’s case has Opal puzzling through a series of ciphers that take her from Chicago’s historic cemeteries to abandoned underground tunnels. Can Opal and her friends outwit the birdnappers while unraveling Maude’s past, or will these two cases prove to be too much?
Bat and the Case of the Yips
The fifth installment in the Schneider Award Honor-winning young middle grade series starring an unforgettable young boy on the autism spectrum, from National Book Award finalist Elana K. Arnold.
For Bixby Alexander Tam (nicknamed “Bat”), nothing is more important than Thor, his pet skunk. Especially not baseball, even though it’s the favorite sport of his dad and his best friend, Israel. And when baseball season arrives and Israel wants Bat to join a team with him, Bat’s dad makes him a deal: If Bat plays baseball this year, Dad will let him bring Thor to his apartment when Bat stays with him. It’s an offer that Bat can’t refuse.
Before long, Bat discovers that being a part of a team requires more than he’d bargained for. But he can’t quit the team without giving up time with Thor or letting Israel down….can he?
Rowan and Gemma
Rowan Monahan has lived in the town of Friendship Prairie forever. He knows everyone, and they know him. Some folks judge him, too, for being a slow learner. But Rowan knows in his heart that he’s capable of more than people think. Gemma Caplan is new in town. Back in the city, people understood she used her assistive device (AAC) to speak. But here in tiny Friendship Prairie, she’s afraid she won’t fit in. When Rowan and Gemma meet, they form an instant, magic bond. But just as the two are growing close, their mothers start a feud: they’re running terribly nasty campaigns against each other for school board. Since their moms detest each other, Gemma and Rowan feel they must keep their connection a secret. When they’re discovered and punished, Rowan and Gemma decide it’s time to take a stand — and show their families what a place called Friendship Prairie is supposed to be about.
Splinter & Ash #3: The Lost Crown
The third and final book in New York Times bestselling author Marieke Nijkamp’s immersive middle grade fantasy series! Through all the secrets and subterfuge, Splinter and Ash have always fought for what is right. But is it enough to save their kingdom—and each other—once and for all? For fans of B. B. Alston, Soman Chainani, and Tamora Pierce.
Devastating news has reached the palace: Sir Anders and Crown Prince Lucen, who were on a secret mission to infiltrate the traitorous Larks, are missing. Lucen is presumed dead, and Anders is rumored to have been working with the enemy Ferisian empire. Tensions are high, and the war between Calinor and the empire is escalating. Which is just what the Larks need to seize control of Calinor’s throne.
But Splinter and Ash know there must be more to the story. Intent as always to unveil the truth and champion justice, they set off on a dangerous quest. To find their brothers, defeat the Larks, and bring peace to their kingdom, Splinter and Ash will need bravery, integrity, and all the help they can get.
The Lost Crown is a masterful and gripping conclusion to the story of two unforgettable misfits who empower all young readers to see themselves as heroes.
Teen
Holloway
“Elana K. Arnold paints prose like a master. A fascinating journey through time, love, and forgiveness.” – A.S. King, Printz Award-winning author of Dig
Award-winning author Elana K. Arnold returns with a boldly visionary, deeply felt story that crosses space and time to examine loss and love in a world on the brink.
It is the late summer of 2021, and a girl named Nora is on the Paris Metro.
Nora, whose mother loved her, even though Nora was broken.
Nora, who couldn’t help her mother when her mother needed her most.
Nora, from whom the pandemic has taken nearly everything, save the object she clings to: a cylinder containing her mother’s ashes.
With no family left, no friends to speak of, and no way to turn back time, Nora has come to France to keep a promise she never got to make: to spread the ashes in a place her mother never got to see. But instead, Nora finds herself on the run through a forest in the night, taking refuge in a dark holloway. And when she wakes, and tries to make her way back to something she recognizes, she realizes that is impossible.
Because it is no longer 2021.
Questioning everything—including her own sanity—Nora sets out on a journey through a time and place completely foreign to her, and yet one that, much like the time and place she came from, is defined by death, loss, fear, and uncertainty. A journey in which she must find a way to honor her mother—and heal herself—in a world that feels irrevocably broken.
Adam, Mine.
From acclaimed author K. Ancrum, on the National Book Award longlist for The Corruption of Hollis Brown, and Lambda Literary Award winner for Icarus, comes a queer romantic horror thriller that is a love letter to Frankenstein about the consequences of our decisions, the legacy of family, and the depths we’ll go to be forgiven.
Victor Frankenstein is a young, wealthy, and brilliant prodigy who wants nothing more than to prove himself and change the world. His plan to right what he feels is wrong with the world? Reanimation of the sick and dying, bringing them back to life. But no one will give him the chance to prove his genius. However, one drunken night a bet is made, one that will cause Victor to do the unspeakable: take a teen boy from a small, neighboring village, and experiment on him under the dark of night. Elias Hilfiker. The boy who would become his monster. His curse. When Elias awakens, his voice is gone, his skin is stitched, scarred, and branded with strange symbols, and he’s abandoned by his loved ones. Meanwhile, Victor embarks on a journey to discover how to reverse the horror he’s unleashed, visiting dark alchemists in lands far and wide, gripped by fear and guilt.
But Victor’s act of resurrection creates a tether to Elias, leaving them feeling each other’s pain, joy, and regret, as the two each seek a way to end the other. As the two bound boys continue to search for answers and forgiveness, vengeance and mercy, the boundaries between what makes a man and what makes a monster will only get more blurred.