“We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep the mind stays up all night telling itself stories.”

(Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make us Human)

You can’t escape stories, they live everywhere.

We find them in books, TV shows, music, advertisements, jokes, anecdotes, love letters, emails, memories and places we haven’t looked yet.

Each new story, fictional or otherwise, can fill an empty space in our worldview with colour and detail or alter what existed there before.

Stories matter because all of us want to feel understood as individuals and as part of a community.

This certainly applies to the special needs community.

Have a glance at these three novels featuring special needs characters that we think everyone should read:

1. ‘The Memory Keeper’s Daughter’

David’s relationship with his wife, becomes rocky while their son must deal with their uneasy relationship and his own longing to know the sister he lost.

2. ‘Up High in the Trees’

This book will make you cry.

Young Sebby Lane tragically loses his pregnant mother when she is hit by a car. Already emotionally and sensory sensitive,Sebby’s father, Stephen, decides to take Sebby to their summer home, but there Stephen falls deeper into his mourning.

3. ‘Of Mice and Men’

This classic story of two men—Lenny and George—one who has a child-like mentality but brute strength, the other who takes on the role as a father-figure to the other.