Just Like Me: 40 Neurologically and Physically Diverse People Who Broke Stereotypes

This collection of profiles of famous people, both living and dead, showcases the huge variety of humanity and can help kids understand that we are all unique and face unique challenges. By bringing the biographies of these individuals together in this way, author Louise Gooding is able to point to the neurological and physical factors that effect some individuals, and help kids learn that there really is no 'normal' way to be. The people in this book became famous in spite of (and in some cases because of) their conditions. Greta Thunberg has Asperger's, which has enabled her to be a particularly persistent advocate for climate justice. Temple Grandin's autism enabled her to develop tools and technologies to assist other autistic people. Even though Beethoven was deaf, he created some of the most iconic music of the last few centuries and it is still performed and listened to today. Stephen Hawking was bound to a wheelchair by Lou Gehrig's disease, but continued to do groundbreaking research in astrophysics until his death. Through these profiles, Gooding shows us that despite neurological or physical ability, we are all capable of incredible things, and that we should not let stereotypes and social expectations tell us what we can and cannot do.