'The Missing Book': A more inclusive world for kids with disabilities - review

Zee is a lively little boy about seven or eight years old, but he is not just any little boy – he is a superhero! He even has a special superhero name – “Incredi-Wheels.” Zee’s little sister is a superhero too. “She’s my sidekick,” he tells the reader. “Her real name is Nina, but her superhero name is Super Sidekick Sister, or ‘Triple S’ for short.”

Incredi-Wheels and Triple S have superpowers and work together to help people whenever they can. Incredi-Wheels zooms around with speed, and Triple S can climb anything with great skill. “We are super helpers!” Incredi-Wheels tells the reader.

One day, the two were playing together in the park when they heard someone yelling. It sounded like a person who needed help. Looking around, they discovered it was their friend Zoey, who was sitting on a bench reading her book when someone – or something – snatched it out of her hands. She needed help finding her book in such a huge park. It sounded like a job for the super-helpers Incredi-Wheels and Triple S.

The Mysterious Missing Book by Rebecca Seligson is the first book in the series The Adventures of Incredi-Wheels and Triple S. It is a sweet and simple story with lively illustrations intended for children aged four to eight. What is unique about Seligson’s first children’s book is that some of the characters have disabilities.

Incredi-Wheels has cerebral palsy and sits in a wheelchair. Zoey is blind, and the book that is stolen from her is in Braille.

Incredi-Wheels zips through the park in his wheelchair, while his sister Triple S climbs a tree to look for Zoey’s book.

Meanwhile, Zoey discovers that she can use her cane to feel around the park for her book. Incredi-Wheels says enthusiastically, “Not only do Nina and I have superpowers, but we helped Zoey discover her own superpower!” Zoey’s cane became a “super searching stick.”

I read this book to my five-year-old twin granddaughters, and they loved it. At one point, I stopped to show them that Incredi-Wheels was sitting in a wheelchair and using it to zoom around. One of the girls said, “Savta, you don’t have to explain. Just read the story!” I told this anecdote to the author, Rebecca Seligson, who lives in Modi’in, and she said that this was exactly the goal she was trying to reach with this book.

My granddaughters just listened to the story and enjoyed it, noticing the main character sitting in a wheelchair and accepting him the way he was without comment. I don’t think they even realized that Zoey was blind. Seligson says she wrote the book as “just a fun story that engages kids where the characters happen to have disabilities. It is not to explicitly teach them about disabilities.”

A fun story with children who happen to have disabilities

Seligson has degrees in early childhood education and literacy, along with experience teaching English as a second language. On her website (https://www.wheellustratedtales.com/), Seligson’s motivation for writing the book is explained:

“After her eldest son was born with severe cerebral palsy, Rebecca took time off from teaching to care for him. During this time, many, many people suggested she should turn to writing. While most people probably intended for that writing to be a first-person account of raising a child with a disability, she decided to go in a different direction: writing children’s books.

“While raising her son (and a few years later, her daughter), Rebecca noticed a severe lack of disabled representation in children’s literature. Knowing how important it is for children to relate to characters in the books they read, Rebecca decided to write a children’s book featuring a child in a wheelchair.”

Seligson wanted to write a book in which the child in the wheelchair was just being a kid – with no explanation or discussion of disabilities. A parent’s or teacher’s guide is included in case the children hearing the story ask questions about the characters’ disabilities. But the idea, Seligson explains, is for the children to understand that children who have disabilities are just kids like they are. There are books on the market to teach people about disabilities and why it is important to accept people who are different from you. However, there are few books starring a child with a disability who was just being a kid.

Seligson, who believes passionately in the strength of books to open new worlds for children, wrote this book as her contribution to creating a more inclusive world for her son and other children with disabilities.

“I wanted to create something that would welcome kids into the world of disabilities in a non-confrontational, enjoyable way. So that way, when they meet my son or others with disabilities, they don’t immediately have the first reaction to stare, point, or say ‘What is that?’ Instead, they can say, ‘Oh! I know what that is; I saw it in that book!’”

The Mysterious Missing Book has likable characters that kids can easily relate to, as well as colorful illustrations that make them come alive on the page. Reading this book with your children is a creative and positive way to help them understand and accept people with disabilities.

The second book of the series will come out next year. 