The Road Back: Living with a Physical Disability
Grade 6-10-The recovery from serious accidents and disabling illness is explained through the stories of three teens. Tricia, 14, was injured in a car accident; Steven, 16, injured his spine in a skateboard accident and has to adjust to life in a wheelchair. Christopher, a high school senior, has multiple sclerosis. Using these individuals as examples, Sirof shows how rehabilitation takes place in the hospital, as an outpatient, or in a rehab center. She introduces the professionals, explaining therapies, schooling, and the laws that serve the disabled. The three join a support group to help them adjust to their changed lives and deal with practical aspects of daily living, reactions of friends and families, and choices that all young people have to make. The author has done a superb job of integrating story and fact to involve readers in the lives of these teens; the writing is clear, well organized, and easy to read. Peter White's Disabled People (1990) covers some of the same material, but is not as well written. Joan Harris's They Triumped over Their Handicaps (1981; o.p., both Watts) relates the experiences of some famous people. The Road Back concentrates on YAs and their specific problems.Martha Gordon, South Salem Library, NYCopyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.