Accidents of Nature (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "In the middle of North Carolina, there is a beach that has no ocean..." (more)
Key Phrases: Peggy Jo, Camp Courage, Camp Spirit (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up It is August, 1970, and 17-year-old Jean attends Camp Courage, labeled Crip Camp by her new friend and cabinmate, Sara. Because she has cerebral palsy, Jean depends on others for many things, but she has always felt part of the normal world. This view changes as she sees herself through Sara's eyes. Sara, an incredibly intelligent, thoughtful teen, talks openly about what it's like to have a disability, as she herself is in a wheelchair. She maintains that no matter what those who are able-bodied think about their efforts to be helpful, they'll never really get it. Nowhere is this better depicted than in the skit that Sara writes for Jean and their bunkmates to perform in front of the entire camp. Through Sara's fierce creativity, the skit turns everything upside down, showing a telethon parody in which the normal people are advocated for, pitied as not being more like the crips. The skit gets them into trouble, but it proves a point. Jean is forever changed by Sara, knowing that with her she can truly be herself. Issues of race, feminism, identity, and sexuality are looked at as well, all relating to Sara's question, What would happen if we could find our own power? This book is smart and honest, funny and eye-opening. A must-read. Tracy Karbel, Glenside Public Library District, Glendale Heights, IL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 8-11. Seventeen-year-old Jean, who "has never let [cerebral palsy] hold her back," has spent her whole life trying to minimize her differences. Then she attends Camp Courage, a retreat for the disabled, where she forms an alliance with a wheelchair-bound firebrand named Sara, who subversively shuns "Norm" society's palaver about overcoming obstacles: "Say it loud, 'I'm crippled and proud!'" Unlike Ron Koertge's Stoner & Spaz (2002), also about a teen with CP, the characters here, especially caustic, diatribe-prone Sara, are present primarily to advance lines of debate, and the novel's 1970 setting will leave many teens wondering how philosophies about disability may have evolved. Still, readers will grow fond of Jean as, nudged by vibrant friends, she trades pious striving for empowering irreverence and struggles to reconcile yearnings to fit in with "oddly thrilling" new ideas: "Surely it makes sense to try to become as normal as possible. But what if normal isn't the only way to be?" Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR) (May 2, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805076344
• ISBN-13: 978-0805076349
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #366,477 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spaaz Meets the Downers, July 12, 2006

By	Michael T. Bailey (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"Accidents of Nature"
Harriet McBryde Johnson
Henry Hole & Co.
New York

Review by Taylor and Michael Bailey

It is not easy to place "Accidents of Nature" into a neat category.
Is it a novel for young adults? A treatise on disability culture? Or, simply, a well-crafted story of how one woman learns that, by accepting others, she comes to accept herself?

The basic tale is simple. Jean, a 17-year-old woman with Cerebral Palsy, has always attended school with "normal" classmates. Her protective family has done everything possible to ignore Jean's differences and provide her with all the trappings of life without a disability. Jean confronts some very real truths about herself, her disability, and her connection to other people with disabilities when she faces a week of summer camp. The typically named "Camp Courage" caters entirely to people with disabilities and it is they she must deal with during her week away from family, home and her regular circle of "friends."

We read this book with care. Partly because it is a good read and partly because our daughter/sister is 18-years-old and is a person with Down syndrome. Like the character, Jean, from the book, she has always been in
"regular" classrooms and had school friends with no disabilities. What we have learned is that her friendships only go so far. Her "friends," like Jean's,
only pursue her, or tolerate her, within the bounds of school. Although no one is actually mean to her, it is clear to everyone that she is different and that there are limits on how much time and energy her classmates are willing to devote. And, like Jean, she has learned a lot about herself by going to a place called Mt. Hood Kiwanis Camp, which, like the fictional "Camp Courage" is for people with disabilities only.

Jean has been exposed to politically correct people and circumstance. So she is quite shocked when she meets Sara. Sara calls the camp "Crip Camp"
and promptly labels Jean as "Spazzo." Jean is quite distressed by these characterizations and her fellow campers whose facial deformities, speech, lack of coordination and odd behavior shock and, at the same time, intrigue her.

Throughout her week at Crip Camp Jean is exposed to "the world according to Sara." Sara ridicules the notion of charity, the pomposity of the camps sponsors and the whole culture of "do-gooders." Sara revels in her disability.
She also manages to get poor Jean into a lot of hot water with her comments and misbehavior.
As the week moves along Jean comes to see more and more that Sara's seemingly mocking and tasteless behavior carries with it a seed of truth that
no one has every expressed before in her presence. It becomes clear to Jean that, like it or not, Sara is telling the truth and that she, Jean, has a mysterious connection with all the other campers that regular school, determined parents and a blind eye cannot erase. Jean finds, at camp, a window on a whole new view of life that makes her happier and sadder, wiser and more curious and, mostly, more at peace with herself and the truth of her place in the universe.

As our family member moves into the world of young adulthood we see her experiencing some of the same things as Jean. To she and her pals with Down syndrome they are the "Downers." They like the "Down syndrome girls supper club" and other disabled-only shenanigans they cook up. She moves about quite skillfully in the world of the temporarily able-bodied but finds her real friends, the people who understand, the people she can be goofy with, among her peers with disabilities.

This book is not anti-inclusion. Quite the opposite. Jean learns that her life in the "real world" will never be real if it is based on a paradigm of rigid segregation from people like herself, or if she is only and always treated as some kind of exhibit that needs to be treated courteously but is never afforded a real place in the human family.

We were struck by what a well-established character Jean is. Her interaction with Sara is the catalyst for self-discovery. Jean, through the roguish character of Sara, is altered profoundly. The new discoveries she makes mature and change her is ways she had never considered.

This story is funny and sad and clear and obscure and, above all, wise. If you have a family member with a disability this book will awaken you to the fact that they are fully endowed human beings. People with their own inside jokes, bitterness and point of view. The book is a joy to read for anyone.
And, who knows, perhaps it will cause you, like Sara, to open your imagination to a complex and complete world, a world based on truth and not perched precariously on the edge of an artificially created world of telethons, charity and good intentions which, inevitably lead to isolation and artificial trappings.

It is a conclusion important to every young person and especially young adults with disabilities longing to find a path in life that is right for them.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, October 23, 2006

By	TeensReadToo.com "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

Jean feels fantastic about her place in the world. Why shouldn't she? She's seventeen, an honor student at Crosstown High School, her friends are great, and her family supports all of her dreams. But this summer, Jean spreads her wings, away from the cocoon of her parents, friends, and her small town, and spends time at Camp Courage--"Crip Camp," as the campers sarcastically refer to it--a camp for children with physical and mental disabilities, and she finds her confidence is shaken. For the first time, Jean must admit that, because of her cerebral palsy, she is different from the other kids at her high school.

Set in 1970 with an epilogue to bring the reader into the year 2000, ACCIDENTS OF NATURE is an excellent overview of how kids with a range of challenges--cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, amputations, autism, asthma, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy--feel condescended to by the world. For example, to make sure no one feels bad at the camp carnival, everyone
wins a prize at the games. Jean and her friend Sara refuse to play, on the basis that there is no challenge in playing a game if one is certain to win. The games then become a metaphor for Crip life, as Jean muses:

"When the games are rigged, does it make everyone a winner--or no one? ... I believe in competition. The program seems to be that handicapped people aren't up to it; we can only pretend to be winners. I don't want to pretend. I want to achieve, really achieve. Or I will take my disappointments just like anyone else" (p. 136).

Johnson captures the pain, anger, and fear of being shunned by the "normal" world in the character of Sara, and explores the naiveté of thinking that no one notices one's differences in the character of Jean. Weaving the two together through the bond of friendship, Johnson creates a captivating, educational storyline.

The overwhelming negative of this book--and the reason I am awarding four stars instead of five--is the epilogue. Without giving away the ending, I'll say that I'm not sure what the author was thinking when she wrote this epilogue; I can think of no other way to describe it but as frustrating, aggravating, and absolutely annoying. Ms. Johnson, what were you thinking?

Still, ACCIDENTS OF NATURE is an excellent book, overall, and well worth a reader's time; I recommend it with a strong four stars.

Reviewed by: Mechele R. Dillard

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a thought-provoking and eye-opening novel, May 31, 2006

By	Teenreads.com (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

Seventeen-year-old Jean has always believed she is the same as everyone else, even though she has cerebral palsy and has to get around in a wheelchair. Jean goes to a normal high school, is in academic clubs, and likes to go to the movies with her friends. She has never known another person living with a disability until she goes to Camp Courage during the summer of 1970 and begins to see herself, and the world around her, in a whole new light. There she meets a whole community of other children and young adults living with various disabilities.

When Jean arrives at the camp, she first encounters Dolly, a girl with severe CP who provides some comical moments throughout the book, as she likes to talk about her love of late-night talk show host Johnny Carson and her highly anticipated risque novella she's been writing. Then Jean meets Sara, a Camp Courage veteran who introduces her to the "Crip Camp" and some other campers. She nicknames Jean "Spazzo" and tells her about some of the social circles that make up the camp. Jean soon discovers that her wisecracking cabin mate has radical ideas, especially when it comes to how people with disabilities are viewed by society, and is often angry by the lack of respect that she and many other campers receive. Through the social commentary on this topic and many others in the book, it is not too difficult to see what issues have been dramatically improved since 1970 and which are still being debated today in 2006.

While Jean socializes with the other campers, she begins to question some of her old beliefs and what the definition of "normal" is in her world. By the end of those enlightening 10 days, her life is changed forever.

While there are some social issues in ACCIDENTS OF NATURE that may make some readers uncomfortable, such as the dance party scene (I thought some of those counselors would have been sued today for misconduct and sexual harassment), this is a great story and an eye-opener. It helps to show that even if a person has a physical or mental challenge, it does not mean that they can't lead a normal life nor does it mean that they shouldn't be given the same level of respect as everyone else. I understand this unfortunate social disgrace because I've been there.

Harriet McBryde Johnson has been an activist for disability rights for many years, and her adult memoir, TOO LATE TO DIE YOUNG, was published in 2005. ACCIDENTS OF NATURE is highly recommended as an addition to your "must read" list.

--- Reviewed by Sarah Sawtelle ([e-mail])