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REVIEWING TODAY: FIRSTS – COMING OF AGE STORIES BY PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES BY BELO MIGUEL CIPRIANI

It probably goes without saying that people with disabilities tend to encounter life more directly and with fewer buffers than those without. What presents to the majority as a basic life challenge, like learning to clean oneself properly, often becomes an almost insurmountable obstacle to one with any of a myriad physical or mental restrictions at any of a thousand levels of severity. Belo Miguel Cipriani selectively chose the stories of such people to include in his book, Firsts – Coming of Age Stories by People with Disabilities. The title is self-explanatory. Each chapter features a story told by one subject who accomplished or surmounted a specific rite-of-passage while endowed with or suffering the onset of a particular disability. But, take the academic sound out of that description. The authors of these chapters are not subjects. Their tales are not clinical studies. These stories are right up close and personal; told by people, not victims.

Belo Miguel Cipriani must be credited for the idea, the selection, and the editing of Firsts. And he must be commended for a job exceedingly well done. The authors of the chosen stories, however, account for the immediacy, humor, drama, pathos, and victorious nature embedded within each tale. And some, like Overdubbing the Cody Effect by Sam E. Rubin, told from the inside by a boy developing autism, and Star Words by David-Elijah Nahmod, survivor of a childhood plagued by parental ignorance and professional abuse, are absolute gems of writing. And the words I kept hearing in my mind while reading these consummately inspiring pieces were those of Nelson Mandela: “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”

Joel R. Dennstedt – Top Reviewer for Readers’ Favorite

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