Book Review: "Accidents of Nature"

When you hear mention of a book with a premise of severely handicapped teenagers going to summer camp, you must assume that the book is going to treat these individuals as some sort of freak show, and that the story will be a very depressing one.

Except, of course, when the author is one of them.

This story takes place in 1970, when handicapped individuals were more or less cast out of society as though they were lepers. But these kids converge year after year at Camp Courage; a state-funded summer camp for disabled teens. Some of them have severe handicaps -- cerebral palsy, mental retardation, autism, muscular dystrophy, amputees, parapalegics, quadrapaledgics, etc... Some, the 'walkie-talkies', appear normal outwardly, but suffer from things like asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, mental illness, etc. All are welcomed as equals to the camp. and nobody feels out of place, as everyone is here for similar reasons.

More astoundingly though is just how vividly colorful the personalities of each of these characters is. People often dismiss the disabled as not being all there and not really having feelings, lives, hopes, aspirations, dreams, life goals, crushes, you name it...but this story touches on all of that and portrays them as the real people that they are. The real live, breathing, flesh and blood people. And it's with this, and seeing that they're not a bunch of sad individuals but rather, teenagers like anybody else who o the best they can with the hand they've been dealt, that serves as somewhat of a jolting wake-up call.

I personally was very sucked in by this story on many levels and really enjoyed it. I'm rating it a 5 out of 5 stars. :)