12 Books by Latinx Authors About Disabilities for All Ages

Disability Pride Month has been celebrated since 1990 as an opportunity to honor the disabled community. It’s celebrated in July to coincide with the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on July 26, 1990, a landmark policy that broke down barriers that prevented millions of disabled people from participating in society. As much of an impact as it’s made, however, there is still so much more work to be done, especially for disabled people of color. As of 2023, more than 6.1 million Latinxs in the U.S., or 10 percent of our community’s population, are disabled and face significant challenges including higher levels of unemployment, higher high school dropout rates, and less access to assistive devices, largely because of language and health insurance barriers. It’s so important for our community to have access to resources that can teach us more about disability and the intersections it shares with race and ethnicity within our community. That’s why we decided to put together a round-up of books centering on disability or featuring disabled characters. We put together a list of books in various genres for all ages so there should be a little something for everyone. Read on to learn more about 12 books by Latinx authors to read this month and year-round.

What the Wind Can Tell You by Sarah Marie Jette

What the Wind Can Tell You by Mexican American author Sarah Marie Jette is a debut novel that follows Isabelle, a young girl who is so fascinated by the wind that she’s built a wind machine. She’s determined to use it to win the middle school science fair alongside her brother Julian, who has a severe form of epilepsy and uses a wheelchair, as her assistant. When Julian has a seizure, she’s suddenly granted entry into Las Brisas, a magical world where Julian’s physical limitations have disappeared and that he visits every night. As she explores deeper into Las Brisas, she not only discovers more possibilities for Julian and herself but also realizes how much she’s at odds with her parents. Told with insight and humor, this is a story about a family struggling to love one another without fear or shame.

Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork

Marcelo in the Real World by Mexican American author Francisco X. Stork follows the titular character Marcelo Sandoval, who hears music that nobody else can hear, a cause of his autism-like condition that no doctor has ever been able to identify. Meanwhile, his father has never believed in the music Marcelo can hear, nor his disability; instead, he challenges him to work in the mailroom of his law firm for the summer as a way to join the “real world.” There, he meets his beautiful and surprising coworker Jasmine, as well as the son of another partner in the firm. He learns about competition, jealousy, anger, and desire. When he finds a picture of a girl with half of a face in a file, he becomes truly connected to the “real world” and its suffering, its injustice, and what he can do to fight for a better day.

Featherless by Juan Felipe Herrera

Featherless / Desplumado by Chicano poet Juan Felipe Herrera is a children’s picture book that follows Tamsisto, a young boy who uses a wheelchair and loves soccer. One day, his father gives him a pet bird to lift his spirits, though it quickly becomes clear that this bird is different than the rest. Over time, they become a dynamic team, scoring and winning goals on and off the soccer field. Featuring acrylic paintings by Ernesto Cuevas, Jr., this is a gorgeous book about self-empowerment, confidence, love, and friendship. It is available in a keepsake bilingual edition featuring English and Spanish.

My Brain Won’t Float Away / My cerebro no va a salir flotando by Annette Perez

My Brain Won’t Float Away by Annette Perez follows Annie, an eight-year-old growing up with hydrocephalus. This is a condition where bodily fluid from the spine accumulates in the brain and may cause increased pressure and head size, headaches, double vision, and poor balance. For Annie, she experiences the condition through her hands of different sizes and constant falling. When she gathers the courage to ask her mother about her disability, what follows is a beautiful story of self-discovery and triumph told with humor, honesty, bravery, and compassion. Based on Perez’s own childhood, the book is available in a bilingual format featuring English and Spanish.

Baldomero’s Birthday Party by Isabel Febles

Baldomero’s Birthday Party by Isabel Febles follows Baldomero, a young boy whose family is throwing a party for his birthday. While he wants to invite everyone in school, he isn’t sure if he should invite his classmate Tito because he’s deaf. Baldomero doesn’t know how to communicate with him in sign language or if he’ll be able to join the festivities and have fun. But when Tito brings Baldomero a set of paints, the boys realize they have much more in common than they thought and learn to communicate through pictures, art, and fun.

Disability, Intersectional Agency, and Latinx Identity by Alexis Padilla

Disability, Intersectional Agency, and Latinx Identity by Chicana researcher Alexis Padilla is an interdisciplinary and intersectional look at disability from a Latinx lens. A blind Latinx scholar and activist, Padilla critically explores the connections between race and ethnicity, diasporic cultures, sociopolitics, and disability within Global North contexts while also incorporating Global South epistemologies. Following the legacy of critical race theory methodological traditions, the book is intensely interested in intersectional analysis and a decolonial approach to research, opening up possibilities for intersectional solidarity and spaces for radical transformational learning. Ultimately, this is the perfect book for readers interested in an academic approach to disability identity and intersectional disability justice.

(M)othering Labeled Children: Bilingualism and Disability in the Lives of Latinx Mothers by María Cioè-Peña

(M)othering Labeled Children by María Cioè-Peña is another academic-centric book, this time exploring the experiences of Latina mothers raising bilingual and disabled children. Featuring current research and firsthand testimony of Latina mothers, the book demonstrates the impact of education and school on children’s experience of their disability, including their family dynamics and language and academic placement and performance. The mothers also discuss their relationships with their children, their disability, and their perception of bilingualism. Readers will discover how generations of matriarchal knowledge can be applied to today’s education and how to balance the academic and socioemotional needs of their children with the financial, physical, and emotional costs.

Just Ask!: Be Different, Be Brave, Be You by Sonia Sotomayor

Just Ask! is the best-selling picture book written by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who is of Puerto Rican descent. Using her personal experiences as a child diagnosed with diabetes, she centers on children who live with various challenges but who carry deep, inherent special powers and abilities as well. As the children in the book work together to build a community garden, they ask questions to each other along the way to learn more about them, encouraging readers to do the same whenever we come across someone who is different from us. As Sotomayor writes, just as different types of plants and flowers make a garden more beautiful, so do different types of people make our world more vibrant and wonderful. Upon its publication, the book became the winner of the Schneider Family Book Award, an award issued by the American Library Association recognizing authors and illustrators for the excellence of portrayal of the disability experience in literature for youth.

What Can’t Be Seen by Adrianna Procida

What Can’t Be Seen is a young adult novel by Adrianna Procida that follows Seito Ohashi, a blind teenage boy living in Japan who is struggling to cope with his mental health. For most of his life, he’s had to deal with it alone as he struggles to make friends, causing him to isolate himself and go through high school alone. Then, he meets his total opposite in Shinjiro Nakano, a popular kid who introduces Seito to his best friends Hanako and Naoyuki. Only time will tell if his new friends are just what Seito needs or if the cruelty of his life will only make things worse between them. Procida used her lifelong experiences with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome as inspiration for the story, as the condition causes immense chronic pain but keeps her disability invisible from others.

Latin American Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Bioethics and Disabilities by Ana Paula Barbosa-Fohrmann 

Latin American Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Bioethics and Disabilities by Ana Paula Barbosa-Fohrmann offers a broad overview of people living with intellectual, physical, and psychosocial disabilities in Latin America through an interdisciplinary lens. Throughout the book, readers will gain an intimate understanding of philosophical, ethical, legal, political, and social issues surrounding disability, as well as outside perspectives from the global scientific community looking at the role of disability in the Global South versus the Global North. Blending together philosophy, neuroethics, law, and politics, this is a call for greater disability rights and against psychiatric institutionalization and inhumane treatment.

The Wild Book by Margarita Engle

The Wild Book by Cuban American author Margarita Engle is a novel in verse that follows a young girl named Fefa, who struggles with dyslexia. Her doctor says that she’ll never learn to read or write because every time she tries, the letters jumble together and jump off the page to her despair and frustration. One day, however, her mother gets the idea to give Fefa a blank book. In this notebook, Fefa starts to sprinkle words like seedlings, which grow stronger and more confident each day. But when her family is threatened, Fefa is the only one not to lose hope, determined to use what she’s learned from her wild book to save them. Based on the true story of Engle’s Cuban grandmother, it is a glowing, powerful story of disability and triumph.

Like Water by Rebecca Podos

Like Water by Mexican American author Rebecca Podos is a YA novel that follows Savannah “Vanni” Espinoza, who lives in a small New Mexico town where kids leave right after high school graduation or else be trapped there forever. While Vanni had plans in place to leave and a swimming scholarship, her father discovers that he’s been diagnosed with Huntington’s disease, an incurable neurodegenerative disease that can cause a lack of coordinated body movements and difficulty speaking, and necessitate full-time care. Instead of pursuing a degree, Vanni splits her time between living at home, helping her mother take care of her father, working as a mermaid at a water park and her family’s restaurant, and flirting with boys. That all changes when she meets Lucas and his sister Leigh, who just moved into the city. Leigh is genderqueer and disillusioned with small-town life, looking for something more, and most importantly, unlike anyone Vanni has ever met. They quickly become friends, then soon, something more, causing Vanni to question her sexual identity and break down the walls she carefully constructed to protect herself. It’s a moving love story about sacrifice, queerness, and what we’ll do to take care of the people we love.