Wordgathering

A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature

Volume 9     Issue 2     June 2015

Book Reviews in this Issue

covers of four books being reviewed

Wordgathering considers its book reviews one of its most valuable features. Not only do they provide readers with an awareness of some of the newest work in disability literature, but they provide a space for reflecting upon the nature of that literature and its places within literature generally. Written by accomplished writers, the book reviews are, we hope, literary essays in themselves — not mere book summaries or promotional pieces supplied by publishers to increase book sales. To that end, information about the books such as publisher and publication date are integrated into the essays themselves rather than mastheaded across the top of the review. The attempt to make this information an organic part of the review, however, can pose problems for those accessing the journal through screen readers and other alternate accessibility devices who may be interested in the basic publication information. Beginning with this issue, we will try to ameliorate that problem by listing those facts at the end of the book review, just before the before the reviewer's biographical note, in the following format:

Title:
Author:
Publisher:
Publication Date:

In the spirit of not allowing price to be a disincentive to knowledge about new books, that category will be left to readers to explore on their own.

The half dozen reviews in this issue display the wide variety of forms that disability fiction comes in. Noted YA writer J. L. Powers turns her attention to a children's picture about Olympian and blind artist George Mendoza. Ed Krizek's novel posits a protagonist whose perception of auras constitutes a disability. Australian writer Michael Uniacke returns with an autobiographical tale of growing up hearing impaired. New poetry is represented by Lynn Strongin. Wordthering is especially pleased to be providing reviews of two books that may become very important to dbeforeisability study scholars and teachers. Katie Ellis' Disability and Popular Culture brings together under one cover the manifold issues in popular culture that have been explored by scholars while Patricia Dunn's Disabling Characters takes a close look at young adult novels that incorporate characters with disability. In addition to these reviews, Saloua Ben Zahra's piece "Speaking Volumes" in the Essays section discusses the compex issues of deafness Samuel Shimon's Iraqi in Paris

The book reviewers for this issue, Kathryn Allen, Anne Kaier, Jill Khoury, Raymond Luczak and Ona Gritz, are all authors whose own books have been previously reviewed in Wordgathering. Readers interested in learning more about these reviewers' work can find listings for them in the Author's Index under the "Book Reviews" heading.

Wordgathering welcomes hearing from writers who are interested in writing book reviews and writers or publishers interested in having a disability-related book reviewed. For the latter, please send a query, briefly describing the book.

 

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