Welcome to the Disability & Neurodivergence Pride Reading Challenge! We want to shine light on  disabled and neurodivergent authors and books that promote acceptance and a positive view of disabled and neurodivergent people. We begin in July 2021 because it’s Disability Pride Month, but we want this reading challenge to be very low-stress and accessible, so you will have until July 2022 to complete it. Please use #ReadDisabilityPride on social media so we can see anything you post!

The prompts are:

1. Read a book written by a disabled or neurodivergent author. 

2. Read a book featuring a disabled main character. Characters that have magical abilities or magical/high-tech prostheses that allow them to act as if they are not disabled do not count.

3. Read a book with a neurodivergent main character where their neurodivergence is portrayed positively. 

4. Read a book by a BIPOC disabled or neurodivergent author. 

5. Read a book by an LGBTQ+ disabled or neurodivergent author or featuring LGBTQ+ disabled or neurodivergent characters. 

6. Read a book featuring disabled or neurodivergent characters in a healthy romantic relationship. 

7. Read a book in your favorite genre that fulfills another prompt for this challenge. 

8. Read a book by a new-to-you disabled or neurodivergent author. 

Bonus: Read a book featuring a disability or type of neurodivergence that you or a friend has. 

The twist: Of course, you may count books read for other challenges and one book may count for more than one prompt, but each book you read for this challenge must include a different disability or type of neurodivergence.

For example: If we chose to read The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang for prompts #1, 3, 4 and 8, the book we read for prompts #2, 5, 6, and 7 must focus on a disability or type of neurodivergence other than Autism.

And of course audiobook, Braille, and other formats count!

What do we mean by disabled?
If you and the author or character in question consider it a disability, it counts. We aren’t here to police others’ experiences. We have differentiated disability and neurodivergence because having a differently wired brain does not necessarily equal disabled. It can simply be a different way of being. (We lumped for the hashtag though, because otherwise it would be too long. 😅)

What counts as neurodivergent? 
This includes Aspergers, Autism, ADD, ADHD, Dissociative Disorders (DID, OSDD, DDNOS), Dyscalculia, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, PTSD, Synesthesia, Tourette Syndrome, and other brains that are wired differently from the “norm”. 

Because we are disabled, neurodivergent, and chronically ill several times over, we’ve only added a smattering of books to the prompts. To be honest, we also find looking at all the books we’ve already added overwhelming. So you’ll have to do your own research. 😊 Here are some great starting points for that: