Disability Pride Month

Every July, the city of Lake Oswego, Oregon recognizes Disability Pride Month with events throughout the city.

Disability Pride Month promotes acceptance of disability as an identity, community, and culture. It honors the history, achievements, and experiences of people with disabilities while challenging ableism and discrimination.

Disability pride is about embracing people with disabilities as fully human. It is not about denying challenges or “liking” one’s disability but rejecting shame and the idea that disabled people are less capable of contributing to society.

At Lake Oswego Public Library, we are proud to support Disability Pride Month with a growing collection of books by and about disabled people. These include works that reflect authentic disability experiences, often written by disabled authors themselves, avoiding stereotypes that reduce disability to plot devices or negative tropes. This month, explore our curated booklist that highlights diverse perspectives on disability:.


Updated June 24, 2025
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Access state-level health and demographic data about adults with disabilities.
Watch documentaries about the history of the disability rights movement and meet artists and families whose stories examine their disability experiences.

Although not yet officially recognized in the United States, since 2004 Disability Pride Month has been celebrated with parades in cities including New York, Chicago, Madison, and Los Angeles.

Love from A to Z
Ali, S. K.
Paper Book
A Today Show Read with Jenna Book Club Pick "The bighearted, wildly charming, painfully real love story I've been waiting for." --Becky Albertalli, New York Times bestselling author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda From William C. Morris Award...
El deafo
Bell, Cece
Paper Book
Cece Bell's #1 New York Times Bestseller graphic novel El Deafo is the origin story of a student with hearing loss and a hearing aid becoming a superhero. A John Newbery Medal Winner Now an Apple+ Animated TV Series! ...
Mean baby a memoir of growing up
Blair, Selma, 1972-
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER * Selma Blair has played many roles: Ingenue in Cruel Intentions. Preppy ice queen in Legally Blonde. Muse to Karl Lagerfeld. Advocate for the multiple sclerosis community. But before all of that, Selma was known best as ... a mean baby. In a...
Beautiful people my thirteen truths about disability
Blake, Melissa (Blogger)
Paper Book
Disability activist and social media influencer Melissa Blake offers a frank, illuminating memoir and a call to action for disabled people and allies.  In the summer of 2019, journalist Melissa Blake penned an op-ed for CNN Opinion. A conservative pundit caught...
The pretty one : on life, pop culture, disability, and other reasons to fall in love with me
Brown, Keah
Paper Book
From the disability rights advocate and creator of the #DisabledAndCute viral campaign, a thoughtful, inspiring, and charming collection of essays exploring what it means to be black and disabled in a mostly able-bodied white America. Keah Brown loves herself, but that hadn't...
Dancing after TEN : a graphic memoir
Chong, Vivian
Paper Book
In Dancing After TEN, Chong teams up with cartoonist Georgia Webber to tell her journey of life after becoming blind. This extraordinary journey, rendered with rare sensitivity and rawness, takes her from the depths of despair to the realm of possibility, as she realises her artistic vision in a...
Deaf utopia : a memoir-- and a love letter to a way of life
DiMarco, Nyle
Paper Book
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE CO-DIRECTOR OF DEAF PRESIDENT NOW! A heartfelt and inspiring memoir and celebration of Deaf culture by Nyle DiMarco. Actor, producer, two-time reality show winner, and now co-director of the acclaimed film Deaf President Now!, DiMarco both shares his...
More alike than different : my life with down syndrome
Egan, David
Paper Book
In this inspiring memoir, David Egan tells his own story, giving us a window into a life spent pushing boundaries. With a family undaunted by his diagnosis of Down syndrome, Egan learned early to speak up for himself. He has since become a powerful advocate for all people with disabilities. ...
How to be human : an autistic man's guide to life
Fleming, Jory
Paper Book
An unforgettable, unconventional narrative that examines the many ways to be fully human, told by the first young adult with autism to attend Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. As a child, Jory Fleming was wracked by uncontrollable tantrums, had no tolerance for...
We're not broken : changing the autism conversation
Garcia, Eric
Paper Book
"This book is a message from autistic people to their parents, friends, teachers, coworkers and doctors showing what life is like on the spectrum. It's also my love letter to autistic people. For too long, we have been forced to navigate a world where all the road signs are written in another...
Haben : the deafblind woman who conquered Harvard Law
Girma, Haben
Paper Book
The incredible life story of Haben Girma, the first Deafblind graduate of Harvard Law School, and her amazing journey from isolation to the world stage. Haben grew up spending summers with her family in the enchanting Eritrean city of Asmara. There, she...
I live a life like yours : a memoir
Grue, Jan
Paper Book
* A New York Times Editors' Choice * Publishers Weekly Best Nonfiction Books of 2021 * I am not talking about surviving. I am not talking about becoming human, but about how I came to realize that I had always already been human. I am writing about all that I...
Being Heumann : an unrepentant memoir of a disability rights activist
Heumann, Judith E.
Paper Book
Soon to be an Apple feature movie directed by CODA's Sian Heder and starring BAFTA-nominated actress Ruth Madeley as Judy Heumann "This important book will help ensure that every person gets a chance to live up to their full potential and will always have a place at the...
A curse so dark and lonely
Kemmerer, Brigid
Paper Book
A New York Times bestseller! "Has everything you'd want in a retelling of a classic fairy tale." - Jodi Picoult In a lush, contemporary fantasy retelling of Beauty and the Beast, Brigid Kemmerer gives readers another compulsively readable romance...
Such a pretty girl : a story of struggle, empowerment, and disability pride
LaSpina, Nadina
Paper Book
A memoir by a disability rights activist Such a Pretty Girl is Nadina LaSpina's story--from her early years in her native Sicily, where still a baby she contracts polio, a fact that makes her the object of well-meaning pity and the target of messages of hopelessness; to...
Ain't that a mother : postpartum, palsy, and everything in between
Nelson, Adiba
Paper Book
From pasties to postpartum and everything in between No one said motherhood would be easy. For Adiba Nelson, the journey to parenthood started with a big bang and continues with a breakdown (or two) and several "why?" questions for God. Witty and bold, Afro-Latina Adiba grew up in...
True biz : a novel
Nović, Sara
Other
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK * A "tender, beautiful and radiantly outraged" (The New York Times Book Review) novel that follows a year of seismic romantic, political, and familial shifts for a teacher and her students at a boarding school for the deaf, from the...
Fortune favors the dead : a novel
Spotswood, Stephen
Paper Book
A wildly charming and fast-paced mystery written with all the panache of the hardboiled classics, Fortune Favors the Dead introduces Pentecost and Parker, an audacious new detective duo for the ages. "Razor-sharp style, tons of flair, a snappy sense of humor, and all the most...
Sitting pretty : the view from my ordinary resilient disabled body
Taussig, Rebekah
Paper Book
A memoir-in-essays from disability advocate and creator of the Instagram account @sitting_pretty Rebekah Taussig, processing a lifetime of memories to paint a beautiful, nuanced portrait of a body that looks and moves differently than most. Growing up as a...
Disability visibility : 17 first-person stories for today : adapted for young adults
Wong, Alice
Paper Book
Disabled young people will be proud to see themselves reflected in this hopeful, compelling, and insightful essay collection, adapted for young adults from the critically acclaimed adult book, Disability Visibility: First Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century that "sheds light on...
Disability visibility : first-person stories from the Twenty-first century
Wong, Alice
Paper Book
A groundbreaking collection of first-person writing on the joys and challenges of the modern disability experience- Disability Visibility brings together the voices of activists, authors, lawyers, politicians, artists, and everyday people whose daily lives are, in the words of playwright...
Year of the tiger : an activist's life
Wong, Alice
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER . ONE OF USA TODAY'S MUST-READ BOOKS . This groundbreaking memoir offers a glimpse into an activist's journey to finding and cultivating community and the continued fight for disability justice, from the founder and director of the Disability Visibility Project ...

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