Our Own Voices table features books by Own Voices and the voices featured change periodically. We are currently featuring Disabled Voices on our Own Voices table. Despite the fact that roughly 1 in 4 Americans have a disability, we don’t often see people with disabilities depicted in books. It’s even harder to find accurate depictions of characters with those disabilities. We included neurodiverse authors, as they can sometimes be grouped in with disabled people.

Own Voices is a term coined by the writer Corinne Duyvis, and refers to an author from a marginalized or under-represented group writing about their own experiences/from their own perspective, rather than someone from an outside perspective writing as a character from an underrepresented group. Own Voices describes the book, not the person. A book being written by a person who shares the identity  of the character represented makes the story Own Voices.

Our table can't possibly display nicely all of the own voices books for the featured category and we apologize if we have left your favorite off the table. We have tried to incorporate as many genres and audiences as possible without making it hard to see the books featured. Feel free to let  us know if you think we have missed the mark or that we should add/remove a title. We love feedback!