Accidents of Nature

Starred review from April 10, 2006
Through the eyes of 17-year-old wheelchair-bound Jean, readers of this wry, at times searing debut novel gain access to an intimate world that few Norms (what Jean calls fully functioning people) ever see. Her family has always treated Jean as a "normal" child; her 10-day stay at Camp Courage is her first time away from them. Johnson, like her heroine, is confined to a wheelchair (due to a neuromuscular disease), and possesses a rare gift for writing in the present tense: readers will feel as if they are experiencing Jean's many small discoveries right along with her. Each chapter covers a day at camp, and Jean's world view begins to shift on day one, when she meets Sara (also wheelchair-bound), a veteran camper. A straight shooter, Sara nicknames Jean "Spazzo," and exposes the insidious ways in which the Norms condescend to the Crips. Taking stock of the cabin they share, Sara says, "It looks like we've got about the right mix—three wheelchairs, a one-leg amputee, two MR's , and two walkie-talkies." When Jean asks Sara why she comes to camp, she replies, "I need to be with my people. The Crip Nation." In one of the novel's many revelatory scenes, Jean describes swimming with the other campers: "I count it a rare privilege to see them all without their coverings, their equipment, their attachments, their replacement parts, as they really are, in all their strange variety." Readers, too, will find this journey with Jean a rare privilege, as she rethinks her place in the world. Ages 12-up.

Starred review from May 1, 2006
Gr 9 Up -It is August, 1970, and 17-year-old Jean attends Camp Courage, labeled -Crip Camp - by her new friend and cabinmate, Sara. Because she has cerebral palsy, Jean depends on others for many things, but she has always felt part of the -normal - world. This view changes as she sees herself through Sara -s eyes. Sara, an incredibly intelligent, thoughtful teen, talks openly about what it -s like to have a disability, as she herself is in a wheelchair. She maintains that no matter what those who are able-bodied think about their efforts to be helpful, they -ll never really -get it. - Nowhere is this better depicted than in the skit that Sara writes for Jean and their bunkmates to perform in front of the entire camp. Through Sara -s fierce creativity, the skit turns everything upside down, showing a telethon parody in which the -normal - people are advocated for, pitied as not being more like the -crips. - The skit gets them into trouble, but it proves a point. Jean is forever changed by Sara, knowing that with her she can truly be herself. Issues of race, feminism, identity, and sexuality are looked at as well, all relating to Sara -s question, -What would happen if we could find our own power? - This book is smart and honest, funny and eye-opening. A must-read." -Tracy Karbel, Glenside Public Library District, Glendale Heights, IL"

Copyright 2006 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2006
Gr. 8-11. Seventeen-year-old Jean, who "has never let [cerebral palsy] hold her back," has spent her whole life trying to minimize her differences. Then she attends Camp Courage, a retreat for the disabled, where she forms an alliance with a wheelchair-bound firebrand named Sara, who subversively shuns "Norm" society's palaver about overcoming obstacles: "Say it loud, 'I'm crippled and proud!'" Unlike Ron Koertge's " Stoner & Spaz "(2002), also about a teen with CP, the characters here, especially caustic, diatribe-prone Sara, are present primarily to advance lines of debate, and the novel's 1970 setting will leave many teens wondering how philosophies about disability may have evolved. Still, readers will grow fond of Jean as, nudged by vibrant friends, she trades pious striving for empowering irreverence and struggles to reconcile yearnings to fit in with "oddly thrilling" new ideas: "Surely it makes sense to try to become as normal as possible. But what if normal isn't the only way to be?"(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)