They didn't go far enough. Following a career change necessitated by vision loss, I found myself as a college instructor teaching disability awareness classes to occupational therapy students. While the students were receptive to any of the books I used as texts, they were never able to see beyond the personal accounts of disability to the growing civil rights movement that would affect the books' authors. The struggles, as they read them, were personal and, in my students' minds, they remained isolated incidents. The authors communicated well on a personal level.
Disability is the most diverse minority group around.
And out of diversity come many accounts, personal and unique. The writer in my soul argues for artistic license. While I am always glad to see almost any book by a disabled writer on the bookstore shelf, I have to admit that I am more heartened to discover books by us that help shape and define our movement. In my middle-aged impatience I have to stop to remind myself that within my lifetime, those of us with disabilities more often than not were denied the chance to define ourselves through writing. John Callahan would never have made Mrs. Kline's list.