Children's Books Featuring Young People with Dyslexia

In celebration of Dyslexia Awareness month, this week I'm featuring children's books with main character's who have dyslexia or other language based reading challenges. Sharing these stories with students, whether fictional or real, helps them to see kids like themselves represented in literature and to know they are not alone.

Just Ask written by Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court Justice, and illustrated by Rafael Lopez,  is a picture book for ages 4-8. Sonia writes from her own experience with having diabetes, but the additional characters, with a variety of physical and cognitive challenges including dyslexia, are all fictional. The book tells the story of a group of children working together to create a garden. It embraces diversity by encouraging children to "Just Ask" when they wonder about someone who is different from them. The text points out that not all children are comfortable talking about their differences, in which case children can seek answers from parents and teachers. The book includes perspectives from children with a variety of challenges including asthma, blindness, hearing impairment, autism, stuttering, Tourette's Syndrome, Down Syndrome,  and ADHD. Winner of the 2020 Schneider Family Book Award. The Lesson Guide from Read Across American includes resources for teaching kids about disability awareness. The Nora Project offers additional guidance about the difference between showing respectful curiosity versus requiring answers of children who may feel very private about their challenges.

The Truth As Told by Mason Buttle written by Leslie Conner is about a boy who struggles with reading and writing. Taunted by bullies because of his dyslexia, he finds himself in continual conflict with the neighborhood boys at the same time that he is struggling with the mysterious death of his best friend. When his new friend goes missing, he must figure out what has happened. This Middle-Grade Mystery for Grades 4-8 was a National Book Award Finalist in addition to a 2019 Schneider Family Book Award Winner. See the Educator's Guide by Harper Collins.

Fish in a Tree, by Lynda Mullaly Hunt, is the recipient of the 2016 Schneider Family Book award. The story features a bright and creative six grade girl who hides her dyslexia by creating numerous distractions in class. With the help of a new teacher, she is able to embrace her dyslexia and celebrate her talents. Read the Q&A on the author's blog where she discusses her personal struggles with reading. 

Hank Zipzer: The World's Greatest Underachiever, is a series of middle-grade novels based on Henry Winkler's own experiences with dyslexia. Hank is smart, resourceful, funny, and creative, but he struggles with the many ways dyslexia can impact everyday life. The series is for grades 3-7, ages 8-12. The Here's Hank series is based on a younger version of the same boy in second grade and is written for ages 6-9. Read my post about Henry Winkler.

The Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan features a main character with ADHD and dyslexia. Characters throughout his books face a variety of challenges. Percy Jackson, the main character of the series by the same name, has ADHD and dyslexia, but in this colorful adventure series, these differences are a sign of his extraordinary powers. He is a demigod, the son of a Poseidon. Just like the other demigods at Camp Half-Blood, he never fit into the ordinary world, especially not at school. Author Rick Riordan, a former classroom teacher, modeled Percy after his own son who has dyslexia and ADHD. In his article with The Guardian, Riordan tells how his son hated books and so each night Rick would tell him stories from Greek mythology. When he ran out of stories, his son asked him to make some up. That's when the author created the Percy Jackson character. 

Thank You, Mr. Falker is a picture book that the author/illustrator, Patricia Polacco, wrote about her early struggles with reading. See the Classroom Resource Guide for the book published by the International Literacy Association. Polacco did a video interview with Reading Rockets where she discussed her reading challenges and the Teacher Who Changed Everything. Mr. Falker was the first one to realize she had dyslexia and he even paid for her reading therapy out of his own pocket. 

See my September 20 Post about Tad Lincoln's Restless Wriggle: Pandemonium and Patience in the President's House and the Q&A with author Beth Anderson as she talks about the evidence that Tad Lincoln may have had speech and learning challenges. My Educator's Guide may be downloaded as a PDF.

My book, Take Me There, is a gritty teen story with mature subject matter for ages 14 and up that explores the correlation between incarceration and learning disability. It is a YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers. Dylan Dawson tries to turn his life around after a stint in juvie, but trouble just seems to follow him wherever he goes. On the run from the police and an LA street gang, he goes to Texas looking for his father who is in prison. When they reunite, he learns how his father's struggles with literacy limited his options which led to a life of crime, the same path that Dylan appears to be following. Even so, Dylan refuses to believe that his father is responsible for the murder for which he has been convicted and sets out to find the real killer.

On a related topic, see my previous post about Children's Authors with Dyslexia. Many of them have interviews featured on Reading Rockets. I hope you have the opportunity to share some of these great books with your struggling learners during Dyslexia Awareness Month and all through the year.

Also, in celebration of dyslexia month, subscribe to my monthly newsletter HERE and receive a FREE PDF of my decodable book, No Gift for Man. The illustrated version will be available on Amazon in November. This is the first book in the HOT ROD Series (Higher Order Thinking Through the Reading of Decodables.)

Children's Authors with Dyslexia - Patricia Polacco

Continuing with my theme of honoring children's authors with dyslexia for Dyslexia Awareness Month, this week I'm excited to discuss author/illustrator Patricia Polacco. Thank You Mr. Falker is her picture book about a girl (the author) who struggles with reading.

See the Classroom Resource Guide for the book published by the International Literacy Association.

The author, Patricia Polacco, did a video interview with Reading Rockets where she discusses her reading challenges and the Teacher Who Changed Everything. Mr. Falker was the first one to realize she had dyslexia and he even paid for her reading therapy out of his own pocket. This short (under two minutes) video is definitely worth sharing with your students.

She created another video discussing her learning challenges and the terrible bullying she endured in school. Her book, Bully, is for children ages 7-10 (grades 2-5). For younger children, ages Prek-3rd grade, she has a brand new book out just this month entitled Sticks and Stones (Simon & Schuster).

Sticks and Stones is about a year in the life of Patricia when she and two friends were bullied in elementary school. It depicts how they found strength in their friendship and in discovering their special talents.

See the video on  Patricia Polacco and Bullying. She talks about her struggles at greater length, the devastating effects of being bullied, and the importance of kindness and acceptance. She states that children with learning disabilities are geniuses. I wondered about that comment at first. Certainly, we can't all be geniuses, but she clarifies this by saying, "We as humans are all gifted, but we don't open our gifts at the same time."

Temple Grandin, the famous animal science professor with autism puts it another way, "The world needs all kinds of minds." Perhaps we all have our own type of genius. 

With that in mind, I will leave you with this thought.

Perhaps our most important job as educators is to help young people discover their unique genius.

See my blog posts on other authors with dyslexia:

Henry Winkler

Dav Pilkey

Laurie Halse Anderson

Four Picture Books About Real Kids Facing Disability, Illness and Adversity

In my work with students with disabilities, I have often used stories about real kids facing real challenges. I especially like the picture book format because this genre gets to the heart of a story so quickly and eloquently. When these books follow a narrative structure, I have the opportunity to talk about plot and story form as well as themes of perseverance and hope.

Four excellent picture books about real kids facing disability, illness and adversity are below:

Six Dots: The Story of Young Louis Braille by Jen Bryant illustrated by Boris Kulikov (2016) Random House; New York. Grades K-4.

SUMMARY: Louis Braille wants to read but there are no books for blind children in his small French village. He attends the Royal Academy for the Blind in Paris and is excited when he is presented with a book with raised letters, but the words are the size of his hand and the books are huge which limits the volumes the library can contain. He makes it his mission to produce a reading and writing format for the visually impaired and realizes his dream at the age of fifteen when he creates a system using six dots to represent all the letters of the alphabet. 

Emmanuel's Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah written by Laurie Ann Thompson and illustrated by Sean Quails (2015) Random House; New York. Grades K-2.

SUMMARY: Emmanuel is born in Ghana, West Africa with a deformed leg. Most people think he won’t amount to much, but his mother encourages him to believe in himself and follow his dreams. He hops to school on his good leg two miles each way and learns to play soccer with his classmates. When his mother becomes ill, he leaves home for the city at the tender age of thirteen to earn money to support her. He later becomes a cyclist and rides four hundred miles across Ghana to promote awareness about people with disabilities. The film version, Emmanuel’s Gift, is narrated by Oprah Winfrey.

Thank You, Mr. Falker written and illustrated by Patricia Polacco (1998). Philomel Books; New York. Ages 5-8. Grades K-3. 

SUMMARY: Patricia Polacco, renowned illustrator and children’s book author, tells of her personal experiences with dyslexia and how one caring teacher helped her overcome bullying and learn how to read. Video interviews with Polacco talking about the book and her experiences with dyslexia may be found at Reading Rockets.

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr (1977) Puffin: New York: Ages 4-8 for the picture book and Grades 2-6 for the chapter book. This title is available as both a short chapter book (ISBN 0-14-240113-7) and a picture book (ISBN 0-698-11588-0). 

SUMMARY: Sadako develops leukemia as a result of radiation exposure during WWII. She sets a goal of making 1,000 origami paper cranes because of the belief in Japan that if a person completes this task their wish will come true. She wishes not only for health, but also for peace. Her classmates help her complete the cranes and also raise money to build a memorial. Though she dies at the age of 12, Sadako is immortalized by this beautiful story as well as a statue of her image holding a golden crane at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in Japan. Most of the paper cranes were buried with Sadako, but her brother donated one of the few that remain to the WTC Visitor Center in New York See the article. More information about Sadako as well as lesson plans and a teacher's guide for the book may be found at the Origami Resource Center.