54 pages • 1 hour read
Judith Heumann, Kristen JoinerA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
From the first page of her memoir, Judith drives home the idea that people must learn to view disability from another angle and develop an understanding of how disability might be a difference but is not necessarily a setback or something to pity. To Judith, disability is not a misfortune, and it is not something that solely defines a person. She acknowledges that without her disability, she would never have had the life she had. While her disability does define her in this way, she is not her disability. Judith sees her disability as something that pushes her to try harder, learn more, and fight against the status quo. She believes she would not have been the same if she never contracted polio because “[i]f I’d simply been a girl growing up in Brooklyn, I wouldn’t have been exposed to the same things” (202), and she has never wished that she did not have a disability. In the conclusion of her memoir, Judith urges the reader to imagine a world in which stories about people with disabilities were inspiring and uplifting, featuring people who do not pity themselves and depicting people with disabilities as the human beings that they are.
Books on U.S. History
View Collection
Common Reads: Freshman Year Reading
View Collection
Community
View Collection
Community Reads
View Collection
Contemporary Books on Social Justice
View Collection
Disability
View Collection
Education
View Collection
Equality
View Collection
Inspiring Biographies
View Collection
Jewish American Literature
View Collection
Politics & Government
View Collection
Popular Study Guides
View Collection