HandiLand: The Crippest Place on Earth by Elizabeth Wheeler (review)

Once upon a time, some twenty years ago, two mothers bonded as they and their toddlers with cerebral palsy struggled to navigate an inhospitable world. Rejecting the normate reality, the women fantasized about a place they named “HandiLand”—an accessible, stigma-free community where they would have “fewer hassles and more time for fun” (7).

Elizabeth Wheeler returns to this utopian society in HandiLand: The Crippest Place on Earth, to explore the public spaces that young disabled people have entered since the passage of disability rights legislation in the United States (and worldwide) from the 1990s up to the current day. Drawing on disability studies, critical race theory, queer theory, and urban studies, Wheeler examines changing attitudes toward disability as they appear in picture books, young adult novels, graphic memoirs, and fantasy fiction. HandiLand not only examines the evolution of disability justice in society and in contemporary juvenile literature but also within the field of disability studies, where the author perceives resistance to focusing on the child—a regrettable repercussion that may arise from the need to challenge the infantilization of disabled people. Wheeler’s work is relevant to disability studies scholars across the disciplines but, owing to its accessible style, HandiLand also beckons newcomers to the field and everyone “whose work, ideas, and hands touch young people with disabilities” (4). Wheeler familiarizes readers with significant concepts (public space, cripistemology, prosthetic community, and intersectionality) in relatable and often personal ways, achieving her goal of serving parents of children with disabilities “companionship and food for thought” (19). Referring also to her lived experiences as a disabled scholar and parent of disabled children, Wheeler has crafted a multistoried, thoroughly compelling read, punctuated with comedy, poignancy, celebration, and outrage.

A theme-park map, the kind you might find at the entrance to Disneyland, is posted on the book cover prompting us to contemplate a barrier-free world before entering the text. Presumably, a much larger version, and accommodations like an audio guide and Braille directions, would be provided in a real HandiLand. I would need a bigger map to locate what is usually my first port of call—the toilets. Jest intended! According to Wheeler, bathroom humor allows families with disabilities “to assert our belonging in public space as we negotiate barriers and intrusive or hostile strangers. With shared laughter and open talk, we resist the idea that disability in public is a problem” (54). The toilets in HandiLand are both wheelchair-accessible and gender-neutral, and the “Castle of Intersectionality” is the park’s central attraction. Both locations situate disability at the intersection of other social identities like class, race, gender, and sexuality.

Comprised of four parts, the text is organized thematically. Part I builds our understanding of “Kids in Public Spaces” generally, in preparation for our journey to the remaining parts: “Nature,” “School,” and the realm of “Fantasy.” In each place, the author documents positive steps forward, yet also exposes painful dichotomies that the disability community is forced to grapple with, which are frequently overlooked, dismissed, and reinforced by nondisabled individuals.

In Part II, “Nature,” Wheeler interrogates the pitting of animal rights against the rights of individuals with disabilities as prologue to reviewing juvenile texts. Referring to early psychology, Darwinism, and animal studies, she unpacks disabled human–animal associations that have recursively justified and engendered ableism, abuse, and even annihilation. Wheeler then treats us to a superb reading of Seal Surfer, which features a developing relationship between a disabled child and a seal. Young Ben, a “strong swimmer” and wheelchair user, cautiously makes his way down to the beach and discovers a mother and newborn seal on the rocks. Uneasy about their safety, he decides to take them fish. Seasons pass, Ben learns to surf and while out on the breakers with his surfing buddies, he re-encounters the seal—now fully-grown. Visual and narrative texts signal parallels between Ben and the seal: they revel in their freedom of movement, acknowledge...