Here are some book recommendations for all ages who might want to learn more about what it’s like to live with Down syndrome. My favorite memoirs for adults (in addition, of course, to my own A Good and Perfect Gift!) are:
- Martha Beck’s Expecting Adam
- Heather Avis’ The Lucky Few
- Michael Berube’s Life As We Know It
- John Van Sloten’s new book, Thy Tender Care, about his relationship with his son Edward
For middle-grade readers, I appreciated A Storm of Strawberries and Unbound. Finally, as some of you may remember from a previous Substack, I also highly recommend Special byNancy Goodfellow.
I hope you’ll enjoy learning a little more about Down syndrome through these stories and memoirs. If you do, I suspect you’ll find—as we have—that Down syndrome is both a very particular way of being in the world and also a rather ordinary one!
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Amy Julia Becker desires to challenge assumptions about the good life, proclaim the inherent belovedness of every human being, and help us envision and build a world of belonging where everyone matters. Amy Julia invites people to reimagine the good life through her writing and speaking on disability, faith, and culture. She is the author of several books, including To Be Made Well, White Picket Fences, Small Talk, and A Good and Perfect Gift. She is a guest opinion writer for national publications and hosts two podcasts: Take the Next Step and Reimagining the Good Life. Becker is a graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary (MDiv). She is a member of the Disability Ministry Network and the Alliance for Disability Justice and Ethics in Reproductive Genetics. She lives with her husband and their three children in western Connecticut.
