Some People Can't See

Denise Denomme is a library assistant at Laurentian University.

Jordan and Warren are friends. They like to draw and visit Mr.
Russell’s hardware store. They are 10 going on 11 and . . . Jordan is
in a wheelchair.

In Harvest Moon, Jordan and Warren have been invited to decorate Mr.
Russell’s hardware-store window, but Jordan has to go to a self-help
meeting. Mr. Russell suggests they make a drawing of their plans and
start the following day, after school. While they are drawing, Carissa,
a “Down’s kid,” joins them. Warren notices Jordan’s discomfort
and cannot understand why Jordan does not like Carissa. The two boys
decorate the window beautifully. Warren tells Carissa of their success
and invites her to come and see it. Carissa gets lost on the way over.
Jordan sees her crying outside the store and realizes that she’s a
person too.

In Some People Can’t See, Jordan invites his mother and Warren to a
special workshop his self-help group is sponsoring. The workshop lets
others experience being in a wheelchair or having sight problems. While
Warren is learning the art of living with a wheelchair, the two boys
notice Angela, a blind girl, and her mother. There seems to be a
problem, and Angela, upset by her mother’s unwillingness to even try
to experience what her life is like, has an accident that causes both
mother and child to face the limitations they have placed on their
lives.

I enjoyed these two books immensely. They should be required reading in
all grade 5 and 6 classes. The stories deal with the subject of growing
up “different” in a no-nonsense, direct, and empathic fashion. The
reader is made to realize that differences are not bad and that we are
all different; those differences are what enrich our lives.