Arnie and the New Kid. Nancy Carlson, $6.99 (4-8)

Able-bodied Arnie teases Philip — a new student at his school who uses a wheelchair. However, after Arnie injures himself while making fun of Philip, he begins to understand what it means to be compassionate and welcoming.

Be Quiet, Marina! Kirsten DeBear & Laura Dwight, $11.95

Marina has Cerebral Palsy and Moira has Down syndrome, but they like many of the same things. However, Marina loves to make noise, and Moira likes quiet. The story of their friendship is beautifully told in words and photographs.

The Boy Who Could Run But Not Walk: Understanding Neuroplasticity in the Child's Brain. Karen Pape, $34.00

This extraordinary book reveals the power of unconscious assumptions in medicine and science. For example, a boy with cerebral palsy affecting one side of his body had learned to walk badly with poor balance, but he was also able to run and play in a competitive junior soccer league. Dr. Pape explains that we walk and run with the same parts of the brain. This means that if the run is normal, then the brain has recovered. The explanation is simple. He learned to walk with a damaged, immature brain. He learned to play soccer with a recovered, more mature brain. Doctors are trained to look at the abnormal walk, not more competent, later learned skills. This book offers readers a new understanding of how the baby brain grows and recovers differently than an adult brain.

Throughout this remarkable book Dr. Pape shows that cerebral palsy is not an incurable condition. The movement disorders are a physical habit that can be changed, with a lot of hard work. The stories of children’s recovery and improvements found within these pages are a revelation — surprising, inspiring, and illuminating, offering real hope for some of the world’s most vulnerable children. With profound implications for the nearly 17 million children and adults worldwide living with cerebral palsy, The Boy Who Could Run But Not Walk challenges the outdated thinking that there is no cure for cerebral palsy.

Breakthrough Parenting for Children with Special Needs: Raising the Bar of Expectations. Judy Winter, $17.99

Breakthrough Parenting for Children with Special Needs challenges families and professionals to help children with special needs to reach their full potential by using a proven motivational, how-to approach. This groundbreaking and inspiring book provides detailed information on how to let go of the “perfect-baby” dream, face and resolve grief, avoid the no-false-hope syndrome, access early intervention services, and avoid the use of limiting and outdated labels. Also included are specific guidelines for working with professionals, understanding the law and inclusion and planning for the future.

Can I Tell You about Cerebral Palsy? A Guide for Friends, Family and Professionals. Marion Stanton, Illustrated by Katie Stanton, $15.95

Meet Sophie — a girl with cerebral palsy (CP). Sophie invites readers to learn about CP from her perspective, helping them to understand what it is like to use a wheelchair to move around and assistive technology to communicate. She also introduces readers to some of her friends who have different forms of CP and explains that living with CP can sometimes be difficult, but there are many ways she is supported so that she can lead a full and happy life.

This illustrated book is ideal for young people aged 7 upwards, as well as parents, friends, teachers and professionals working with children with CP. It is also an excellent starting point for family and classroom discussions.

Cerebral Palsy: a Complete Guide for Caregiving, 3rd Edition. Freeman Miller & Steven Bachrach, $45.95

When their child has cerebral palsy, parents need answers. They seek up-to-date advice they can count on to make sure their child has the best possible health and well-being. For three editions now, a team of experts associated with the Cerebral Palsy Program at the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children have shared vital information through this authoritative resource for parents, who will turn to it time and time again as their child grows.

The new edition is thoroughly revised to incorporate the latest medical thinking, including advances in diagnosis, treatment, and terminology. Every chapter includes new content on topics ranging from genetics to pain, temperature control, palliative care, why growth suppression is sometimes recommended, the Affordable Care Act, and how to make it easier for siblings to cope. Chapter 8 has been entirely rewritten to better help adolescents prepare for the transition to adulthood. New classification systems, such as the gross motor function classification system and the Functional Mobility System, are described and explained. And a number of emerging therapies — including marijuana oil, cord blood transfusion, deep brain stimulation, epilepsy surgery, and growing spinal rods — are explored.

Intended for parents, grandparents, teachers, therapists, and others who care for and about people with cerebral palsy and cerebral palsy-like conditions, this is an essential and compassionate guide.

Children with Cerebral Palsy: a Manual for Therapists, Parents and Community Workers. Hinchcliffe, Price & Rogers, $67.95

This book is a practical guide to the effective treatment of cerebral palsy in children. It provides a set of principles by which to observe and analyze individual patients' problems and then plan treatment. With the help of this book, non-specialists working with children with cerebral palsy can make decisions and choose the appropriate therapeutic activities for each child. It includes examples of how to apply these principles to real-life situations, using easy-to-follow descriptions and illustrations. New to this revised edition is a chapter on sensory integration problems with children with cerebral palsy, which looks at ways of evaluating and then dealing with these problems. The author also integrates theory with practical skills more closely.

The Courage to Compete: Living with Cerebral Palsy and Following My Dreams. Abbey Curran, $21.99

Abbey Curran was born with cerebral palsy, but early on she resolved to never let it limit her. Abbey made history when she became the first contestant with a disability to win a major beauty pageant. After earning the title of Miss Iowa, she went on to compete in Miss USA.

Growing up on a hog farm in Illinois, Abbey competed in local pageants despite naysayers who told her not to. After realizing her own dream, she went on to help other disabled girls achieve their goals by starting Miss You Can Do It, a national non-profit pageant for girls and women with special needs and challenges, which became the subject of an HBO documentary with the same name. This is Abbey’s story. 

Finnie’s Handling the Young Child with Cerebral Palsy at Home, 4th Edition. Edited by Eva Bower, $78.95

The 4th edition of Finnie s Handling the Young Child with Cerebral Palsy at Home aims to help parents assist their child with cerebral palsy (CP) towards achieving the most comfortable independence in all activities. The book is also intended to help professionals and other carers new to this field understand, support and encourage young children with CP and their families.

The emphasis of this new edition remains a holistic approach to the child's needs - seeing the difficulties in relation to the overall development of the child as a unique person from childhood to adulthood.

The Four Walls of My Freedom. Donna Thomson, $19.95

This is a riveting and redemptive family memoir. Donna Thomson's vivid descriptions of her own experience in treading delicately through daily care, medical emergencies and the medical bureaucracy as she and her family cope with her son Nicholas' cerebral palsy is both inspirational and instructive. 

Donna Thomson's own experience with adversity takes on new meaning when viewed through the lens of Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen and other philosophers' roadmaps of how to realize a good life against all odds. This lens includes not only people with disability, but also the enormous generation of post-WWII Baby Boomers who are beginning to sense the health care crisis that is looming as they deal with their own aging and increasingly infirm parents. 

Donna Thomson's brilliantly written family memoir provides a strong, original message that touches on the lives of anyone caring for the needs of another.

If at Birth You Don't Succeed: My Adventures with Disaster and Destiny. Zach Anner, $31.50

Comedian Zach Anner opens his frank and devilishly funny book, If at Birth You Don't Succeed, with an admission: he botched his own birth. Two months early, underweight and under-prepared for life, he entered the world with cerebral palsy and an uncertain future. So how did this hairless mole-rat of a boy blossom into a viral internet sensation who's hosted two travel shows, impressed Oprah, driven the Mars Rover, and inspired a John Mayer song? (It wasn't "Your Body is a Wonderland.")

If at Birth You Don't Succeed is a hilariously irreverent and heartfelt memoir about finding your passion and your path even when it's paved with epic misadventure. This is the unlikely but not unlucky story of a man who couldn't safely open a bag of Skittles, but still became a fitness guru with fans around the world. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll fall in love with the Olive Garden all over again, and learn why cerebral palsy is, definitively, "the sexiest of the palsies."

Life Skills Activities for Secondary Students with Special Needs, 2nd Edition. Darlene Mannix, $39.95

Ready-to-use lessons for teaching basic life skills to adolescents with special needs. This book offers teachers and parents a unique collection of more than 200 worksheets to help adolescents with special needs build the life skills they need to achieve independence and succeed in everyday life. The book provides 22 complete teaching units focusing on basic life skills such as handling money, succeeding at school, using the Internet safely, getting and keeping a job, and much more. The book contains 90 reproducible worksheets for teaching students how to apply these life skills to real-life situations.

Life Skills Activities for Special Children Grades K-5, 2nd Edition. Darlene Mannix, $39.95

This book offers teachers and parents a unique collection of 190 ready-to-use activities complete with student worksheets, discussion questions, and evaluation suggestions to help exceptional students acquire the basic skills needed to achieve independence and success in everyday life. Each of the book's activities focuses on specific skills within the context of real-life situations and includes complete teacher instructions for effective use, from objective and introduction through optional extension activities and methods to assess student learning. The book includes numerous reproducible parent letters which can be sent home to help parents reinforce these lessons while children are away from school.

Mitchell’s Story: Living with Cerebral Palsy. Jeff Parkin & Lynda Thompson, $20.50

This is the story of one family’s struggle to give their son as normal a life as possible — and the rewards they found along the way.

MyaGrace Wants to Get Ready: a True Story Promoting Inclusion and Self-Determination. Jo Meserve Mach, Vera Lynne Stroup-Rentier & Mary Birdsell, $12.95 (ages 3-8)

MyaGrace loves music and dancing. Her school is having a big dance and she wants to go with her friend, Emily. She has so much to do to get ready. What should she wear? How should she fix her hair? What color should she paint her fingernails? Will she get everything done in time?

MyaGrace Wants to Make Music: a True Story Promoting Inclusion and Self-Determination. Jo Meserve Mach, Vera Lynne Stroup-Rentier & Mary Birdsell, $12.95 (ages 3-8)

Everyone in MyaGrace’s family makes music. She wants to join her family when they make music. How is she going to figure this out? Fortunately, MyaGrace knows just the person to help.

The Growing With Grace Series promotes the understanding that children with all types of abilities can gain skills they need for self-determination. MyaGrace has intellectual disabilities, autism and cerebral palsy.

OE Wants It to Be Friday: a True Story Promoting Inclusion and Self-Determination. Jo Meserve Mach, Vera Lynne Stroup-Rentier & Mary Birdsell, $12.95 (ages 3-8)

OE is counting down the days until Friday. It’s her favorite day of the week. Each day she has fun, but she knows she will have fabulous fun on Friday. She can’t wait for her special time with Dad and her Boccia coach, Austin.

Out of My Mind. Sharon Draper, $12.99

Eleven-year-old Melody has a photographic memory. Her head is like a video camera that is always recording. Always. And there's no delete button. She's the smartest kid in her whole school — but no one knows it. Most people — her teachers and doctors included — don't think she's capable of learning, and up until recently her school days consisted of listening to the same preschool-level alphabet lessons again and again and again. If only she could speak up, if only she could tell people what she thinks and knows...but she can't, because Melody can't talk. She can't walk. She can't write.

Being stuck inside her head is making Melody go out of her mind — that is, until she discovers something that will allow her to speak for the first time ever. At last Melody has a voice... but not everyone around her is ready to hear it.

Supporting Children with Cerebral Palsy, 2nd Edition. Rob Grayson, et al, $47.50

Offering practical tips and tried-and-tested strategies from professional practitioners, this accessible guide provides advice on how to meet the needs of young people with cerebral palsy. This new edition presents all of the information practitioners will need to know to deliver outstanding provision for young people with cerebral palsy and support the inclusion of children and young people with cerebral palsy into mainstream schools. The far-reaching advice found within this guide includes:

• Planning for a pupil with cerebral palsy
• Accessing the curriculum, including specific advice on each subject area
• Developing independence skills
• Liaising between home and school
• Making the transition into adulthood

With accessible materials, such as checklists, templates and photocopiable resources, this up-to-date guide will enable teachers and other professionals to feel more confident and effective in the support they can provide.

The Survival Guide for Kids with Physical Disabilities & Challenges. Wendy Moss & Susan Taddonio, $21.99

For many kids with physical disabilities and challenges, the barriers they face go beyond what they can and can’t do with their bodies. Loaded with tools for coping with the intense social, emotional, and academic difficulties these students often must deal with — as well as their secret fears — this book helps kids succeed in and out of the classroom and confidently handle their physical challenges. Friendly illustrations, think-about-it prompts, true-to-life stories gathered from the authors’ decades of experience, and specific tips and advice provide comfort, hope, and supportive guidance.

Taking Cerebral Palsy To School. Mary Elizabeth Anderson, $17.95

School friends learn about cerebral palsy. Ages 5-9.

Written by an experienced physical therapist who is also the mother of a child with cerebral palsy, this comprehensive guide examines the physical characteristics of cerebral palsy and similar conditions - muscle tightness and weakness, increased or decreased flexibility, abnormal reflexes, impaired sensory perception - that affect a child's ability to sit, crawl, stand, and walk. Teaching Motor Skills offers dozen of easy-to-follow exercises with accompanying photos that parents may incorporate into many daily routines at home with the guidance and support of their child's physical therapist. This user-friendly guide helps parents and professionals coordinate their efforts to achieve the best possible outcome for the child.

Understanding Cerebral Palsy: a Guide for Parents and Professionals. Marion Stanton, $25.95

An invaluable starting point for anyone encountering cerebral palsy for the first time, this book provides essential background information on causes, types and symptoms, as well as vital advice about the treatments, therapies and sources of support available. Practical tips on everyday considerations such as communication, diet and education will help parents achieve the best quality of life for their child. A final chapter explores options after compulsory education and how best to support a young person making the transition to independent adulthood.

Using personal experience and case studies as sources of inspiration, as well as a comprehensive list of resources to signpost readers to further information, this positive handbook will help parents and professionals more fully understand cerebral palsy and the different options available to people with the condition.

Views from Our Shoes: Growing Up with a Brother or Sister with Special Needs. Donald Meyer, $21.50

The boys and girls whose essays are featured in this collection range in age from four to eighteen. They share their experiences as the sibling of someone with a disability — the good and bad aspects, as well as many thoughtful observations. They are siblings of people with a variety of special needs, including autism, cerebral palsy, developmental delays, chronic health conditions, attention deficit disorder, hydrocephalus, visual and hearing impairments, Down syndrome, and Tourette syndrome. These personal tales introduce siblings to others like them, perhaps for the first time, and allow them to compare experiences.

Visual Strategies for Improving Communication: Practical Supports for School and Home, 2nd Edition. Linda Hodgdon, $60.95

This revised and updated edition of this bestseller is the most comprehensive book to explain the use of visual strategies to improve communication for students who experience moderate to severe communication challenges. It is full of easy-to-use techniques and strategies that will help these students participate more effectively in social interactions and life routines.

Yago’s Heartbeat. Conchita Miranda, illustrated by Monica Carretero, $23.50

Can you dance in a wheelchair? Can you sing without being able to speak? Can you tell stories just with your eyes?

Yago’s Heartbeat is a story for everyone about differences, communication without words and unconditional love.

Yoga Therapy for Every Special Child: Meeting Needs in a Natural Setting. Nancy Williams, Illustrated by Leslie White, $22.95

Yoga therapy is gaining rapid recognition as a form of treatment that can improve the physical and mental wellbeing of children with a variety of complex needs. This book contains a specially-designed yoga program for use with children of all abilities, and provides both parents and professionals with the knowledge they need to carry out the therapy themselves.

The program consists of a series of postures, each of which is explained and accompanied by an illustration. The postures are designed to help children understand and use their bodies, and work towards positive changes such as realigning the spine, encouraging eye-contact, and promoting calm and steady breathing. Consideration is given to creating the right setting for carrying out the therapy, assessing an individual child's particular needs, and making the sessions fun using games and props. Sections on yoga therapy for specific conditions such as autistic spectrum disorder, Down syndrome, and cerebral palsy are included, and the book concludes with child and parent reports on how the program has worked for them, and a list of useful contacts and resources.

This practical book is a must for parents, teachers, therapists and other professionals, and anybody else who wants to help a child to develop through enjoyable and therapeutic yoga sessions.