Community Profile

Based very loosely around the same concept as the amazing 50books_poc, 25book_pwd is designed to encourage people to read and review books that feature characters with disabilities, whether fiction or non-fiction. Please feel free to include graphic novels, zines, short stories, short story collections, magazines, etc. Basically, if you consider it a book, it's a book. Yes, audio books, epublished books, self-published books, etc all count.

I would request this not include fanfic, as access_fandom has an ongoing challenge regarding fanfic featuring disabled characters, so I would encourage you to instead highlight such things there.

Q: Do I have to read 25 books/commit to 25 books?

A: No, not at all. 25 is just a number. I know some people like reading challenges and having a "goal" number is helpful. For others, don't fret about it. This is more meant as a resource for people looking for book lists/recs than anything else.

Q: How are you defining disability?

A: Very broadly, although stand-ins for disability (such as Rogue's "I can't touch anyone" or Sookie Stackhouse's "Too much psychic information", should be tagged "fantastic disability" (in the sense of fantasy/sci-fi).

Q: Are you only wanting to see books by people with disabilities/disabled people, or do you want to see books by anyone?

A: Since a lot of disabilities are non-evident, I think limiting this in any way to "people we know for certain have disabilities because they've chosen to tell us so, or because they 'look' or 'act' disabled" is not the sort of thing we want to do here. That said, if you think the author having a disability is relevant to the book, feel free to mention. (For example, books about characters living with rheumatoid arthritis written by an author with rheumatoid arthritis.) Just, as a reader of the community, don't assume that you know that an author is non-disabled.

Q: Do books have to be in English?

A: No. Neither do book reviews or rec-lists or anything you post here.

Q: Can I cross-post from other communities or my personal journal? Can I just link people to a review or list I've done in another community or my personal journal?

Yes! Feel free! Please note if your link may lead to an advertisement that makes noise, an interstitial ad (ones that block the whole screen until cleared by the user), or open with sound. Please note that Livejournal is now doing this at occasional intervals.

Q: Do you have any posting rules?

A: Yes!
- Please cut-tag for spoilers. Cut tags on Dreamwidth are done as such: < cut text = "Text goes here" > except without the spaces before "cut" and after "here".

- Please aim to include descriptions of images. This can be done as an alt-tag on your image, or below the image as a Caption.

- Please do not use animated icons, as they can cause accessibility-related issues.

- Please do not post untranscribed videos. Feel free to ask for help in transcribing a video. transcripts is also available for transcription needs. Accessibility is a group project, and no one should be stuck going "I want to post this, but I don't have the time/energy to make it accessible, so maybe I won't." We want to support you in creating access.

Q: How should tagging work?

A: Please tag as such: author: last name, first name / fiction/non-fiction / media-type / genre / anything relevant you think people would want to know if they were looking for a book. (Please also tag if something is an anti-rec.) But don't fret too much about tagging - there are people who enjoy tag-wrangling if you are not one of them.

Q: I have all these books that I've already read and I'm not up to writing actual reviews of them. Can I just post book lists?

A: Yes, please do! Please tag them as "booklists". Feel free to just link-drop to a book list you have already done, to your Good Reads or Library Thing page, etc. Please note if a link is to a PDF.

Q: What are some resources I can look at if I want to get started reading?

A: Schneider Family Book Award Winners List

The Schneider Family Book Awards honor an author or illustrator for a book that embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences.

The Young Adult Library Association does lists of titles under certain topics every year.

Bodies: "They come in all shapes, sizes, and abilities...love it or hate it, you only have one body."

What Ails You?

K-State Library Subject Guide: Disability.

I'm looking for non-North American subject guides/rec lists, so please let me know of any you are aware of.

Q: I have a problem/concern that is not addressed here, what should I do?

A: You can email me (anna@annaoverseas.com), or Direct Message me (trouble) or leave a comment on one of the mod posts. (I am hoping to add more moderators to this community soon.)