Reading (Dis)ability in Young Adult Literature: Preparing Teacher Candidates for Understanding and Selecting Texts

Introduction

Scholars have well-established the need for diverse books in school curriculum (NCTE, 2015). Drawing on the work of Bishop (1990), educators often note that literature can serve as both a window, providing a glimpse into another viewpoint or experience different from readers’, as well as a mirror, allowing for representation of students’ cultures, lives, and families. Both are key to cultivating understanding and empathy as well as for validating youth. With a particular focus on multicultural literature, Bishop (1990) warned, “When children cannot find themselves in the books they read, or when the images they see are distorted, negative, or laughable they learn a powerful lesson about how they are devalued in the society of which they are a part” (Bishop, 1990, p. ix). She also noted that if readers only see themselves, the consequence can be youth who become self-centered adults.

Less often discussed, however, is the “sliding glass door” in Bishop’s metaphor, which extends the notion of mirrors and invites readers to “walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author” (p. 1). Johnson et al. (2018) emphasized that an “emotional connection” is often involved for literature to be transformative in this way, and they avowed, “Books that serve as sliding glass doors invite readers to step through and into an experience that may change them. The change may not be visible to others and may not be immediate to the reader” (p. 572). Books, in this sense, are therefore powerful instruments, affording for a deeper understanding of humanity and enlightened sense of self as a member of society.

Glazier and Seo (2005), however, complicated the mirror aspect of Bishop’s metaphor for literature and purported that readings should also include having students in the dominant group reflect on their status and privilege. In their discussion of multicultural literature, they cautioned against presenting literature in ways that reinforce an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ binary, which could “reinforce notions of ‘culturelessness’ among white European American student populations” (p. 686). They noted that silences often exist in school curriculum which in turn result in the “silencing of certain individuals” (p. 688).

In recent years, however, educational professionals have observed that simply the existence of diverse texts that serve as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors in schools is not enough. Teachers must take care to ensure that multicultural literature reflects groups in authentic, non-stereotypical, and affirming ways so as not to perpetuate misconceptions (Landt, 2006). In addition, reading must be accompanied by discussion and activities that prompt students to reflect and think critically (Landrum, 2001), both in terms of Bishop’s metaphor described as well as for how literature reflects and constructs society.

In this chapter, we apply Bishop’s metaphor specifically to working with pre-service teachers to read around the issue of (dis)ability.¹ Historically, “most representations of disability in classic literature are negative or restrictive, others are intended to elicit the audience’s sentimentality and pity” (Curwood, 2013, p. 17). And, although included as a category of diversity, disability is a part of multicultural literature that has been traditionally overlooked but has gained increasing attention in recent decades. We examined how texts that focus on disabilities can reflect students’ own experiences and can provide them glimpses into others’, building onto traditional notions of ‘windows and mirrors.’ We also, however, embraced the notion of critical mirrors, examining how such novels can catapult our understandings of ableism, and we explored literature as sliding glass doors, considering how reading about (dis)ability might be transformative.