Fritsch and McGuire had an abstract sense of what the book might look like and invited Trejos to collaborate. Disability Injustice: Confronting Criminalization in Canadais the title of her forthcoming book, an edited collection thatexplores how disability is central to forms of criminalization and crime control in the Canadian context. Our overarching goal was to share some of the transformative joy we’veexperienced in disability community as disabled people, disability studies scholars, and disability activists. We wanted to create a book that is anti-oppressive in its depictions of disability,showcasing positive representations of disabled communities. We also wanted to demonstrate that disability is a political identity, to show readers how our positive experiences of disability can be curtailed by social injustices like inaccessibility and ableism. And that these injustices arewrapped up with the concerns of other social movements,” explains Fritsch. This acute insight into people’s lives is not found in all the stories however, and that is a significant downfall, for this is what makes We Move. Johal is guilty of writing too much at times and saying too little, and in certain stories like The Piano and Freehold, it seems there is not much beyond the surface. We Move Togetheris a new picture book by a diverse team of authors (Kelly Fritsch, Anne McGuire, and Eduardo Trejos) who have come together to write a love letter to the disability community. It is, in a word, fantastic. It is empowering, it is interesting, it is understandable, it is relevant—I could go on all day about how much I love this book. Unfortunately, as I discovered to my dismay, it is entirely possible that the kids in your life will not love it as much as you do.

In three cleverly interlinking stories, each titled Chatpata, Johal explores with a keen eye what really occurs beneath the actions of those with otherwise outwardly conventional lives. At the end of the second story, Chatpata: Ahankar, Aman observes her closet gay Dad cooking and ironically wonders, “If only she could have a simple and straightforward a life as him.” Johal sneakily winks at us, his audience, as we know things are not this way. A Broken Politics for a Disabled Worldis the working title of Fritsch’s current book project, also co-authored with McGuire. The book examines the failure ofinoperative social infrastructures through a disability lens. “In the book, we consider how crip knowledge practices of repair and maintenance can reconfigure our collective understanding of what broken means in the context of mutual aid and community care,” Fritsch explains. Johal’s exploration of his characters’ hidden lives is what is most exciting. He rightly subverts cultural stereotypes and his audience gains a deeper understanding as a result. What dark secrets does the local Indian’s cook have, who you thought was the most straightforward man around? What about his famous chef daughter, or her newly religious sister? It’s been exciting to launch the lab not only because of our shared research interests but also because we are building a community of disabled people at Carleton who are committed to enacting social change.”

We Move Together is a joyful new children’s book about disability community and culture. In conversation with one of the books’ co-authors, Kelly Fritsch, we discuss COVID-19, children’s literature, and disability justice in Canada. There were quite a few stories that I loved and got so engrossed in them, that I wished it was more to those stories and the characters. I wished that some of the characters had their books, so I can read more about them and their stories and lives. Those stories were also beautifully written, with characters so real, that it felt you are there with them, feeling what they are feeling. We Move Together importantly centers characters and communities that are typically underrepresented in children’s literature. According to a report published in the Toronto Star, only 3.8% of Canadian children’s books published in 2019 featured a character with a visible disability and only 1.7% featured a character with an invisible disability. We Move Together is is truly unique in its expansive representation of diverse bodies, minds and experiences: readers are introduced to a mixed-ability, multi-racial, many gendered, and intergenerational cast of characters who are united by their desire to build a more accessible world.

Honestly, when I read the description of this book, it sounded like something I would love to read, a book that I usually go for. Once I read it, I enjoyed reading it but I can’t say I loved it or that it lived up to my expectations. Lydia X.Z. Brown, disability justice advocate and founder/director of Fund for Community Reparations for Autistic People of Color’s Interdependence, Survival, & Empowerment The idea for We Move Togethercame to Fritsch and McGuire in 2017 when the pair were discussing books they were reading to their young children. Both Fritsch and McGuire lamented the difficulty they were having finding books taking up disability in ways relatable to children and, more generally, to the broader communities to which they belong. A month ago Dr. Suess Enterprises took the decision to stop publishing six books. These include a number you may not be familiar with such as “If I Ran the Zoo” and “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street”. The reason for the decision was that these contain racist and insensitive imagery. These efforts should be encouraged. Likewise newly written and published works by others that try to raise awareness of important social issues among a young readership. Winner of the International Latino Book Awards' Best Educational Children's Picture Book in English.A bold and colorful exploration of all the ways that people navigate through the spaces around them and a celebration of the relationships we build along the way. We Move Together follows a mixed-ability group of kids as they creatively negotiate everyday barriers and find joy and connection in disability culture and community. A perfect tool for families, schools, and libraries to facilitate conversations about disability, accessibility, social justice and community building. Includes a kid-friendly glossary (for ages 6–9). We Move Together is a love letter to the next generation of disabled kids, and a provocation for their nondisabled peers to rethink an ableist society's assumptions about how our bodies should move, what they should look like, and how our brains should work ... This gorgeously illustrated book offers a powerful message rooted in the Disability Justice movement—we care for and love each other, and we move together, with nobody left behind."