Sparrows on Wheels

Robin Chamberlain is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University.

This semi-autobiographical novel is a moving account of the high-school
experiences of Tallia Taves, an aspiring young writer with cerebral
palsy.

The population of Inglewood School Hospital is an unstable one due to
the deaths of students with muscular dystrophy and the integration of
students into “normal” high schools. This instability both mirrors
and augments the turbulence that characterizes the inner lives of
adolescents. In order to show the complexity of the choices facing young
peoples with disabilities, as well as the heterogeneity of this group,
Janz sympathetically renders the voices of students ranging from those
for whom attending a “normal” school is a goal to those for whom it
is a nightmare.

Although by no means a pedantic text, Sparrows on Wheels raises
interesting questions not only about disability and integration, but
about mortality and growing up.