Shane Burcaw is a typical 21 year old, enjoying school, sports, friends, and girls, stuck in a body that is anything but that is anything but normal. At age two, Shane was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, which means his muscles are continually degenerating and he has been in a wheel chair his entire life. Although there is no cure for the disease and Shane is constantly dealing with new challenges from his failing body, Shane has dealt with his life with a raw humor instead of hopelessness. He began blogging about his everyday life, and within months, his blog "Laughing at My Nightmare" had more than 500,000 followers. Due the popularity of his blog, this book was created. I am going to start this review admitting, once again, that I rarely enjoy nonfiction. However, this book was riveting. Shane's raw honesty about the struggles of dealing with a debilitating condition and the frustrations of being thought of as mentally disabled based on his wheel chair made me reexamine my own assumptions about living with a disability. I laughed about his frank discussions about peeing when one is stuck in a wheelchair and how he and his cousin used his condition to miss a lot of class in high school. I appreciated how angry he was when he learned his baseball league for students with disabilities would not be at all competitive, which totally changes how I see the one-size-fits-all approach to adaptive programs for people with disabilities. I especially loved how he dealt with his challenges with humor and how he felt his challenges were no more powerful than the challenges all of us face in life. If we use humor to face them, everything can be better. Shane's words have a universal appeal, and I highly recommend everyone should read them.
Laughing at My Nightmare by Shane Burcaw
Shane Burcaw is a typical 21 year old, enjoying school, sports, friends, and girls, stuck in a body that is anything but that is anything but normal. At age two, Shane was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, which means his muscles are continually degenerating and he has been in a wheel chair his entire life. Although there is no cure for the disease and Shane is constantly dealing with new challenges from his failing body, Shane has dealt with his life with a raw humor instead of hopelessness. He began blogging about his everyday life, and within months, his blog "Laughing at My Nightmare" had more than 500,000 followers. Due the popularity of his blog, this book was created. I am going to start this review admitting, once again, that I rarely enjoy nonfiction. However, this book was riveting. Shane's raw honesty about the struggles of dealing with a debilitating condition and the frustrations of being thought of as mentally disabled based on his wheel chair made me reexamine my own assumptions about living with a disability. I laughed about his frank discussions about peeing when one is stuck in a wheelchair and how he and his cousin used his condition to miss a lot of class in high school. I appreciated how angry he was when he learned his baseball league for students with disabilities would not be at all competitive, which totally changes how I see the one-size-fits-all approach to adaptive programs for people with disabilities. I especially loved how he dealt with his challenges with humor and how he felt his challenges were no more powerful than the challenges all of us face in life. If we use humor to face them, everything can be better. Shane's words have a universal appeal, and I highly recommend everyone should read them.
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AuthorMs. Smith has been the librarian at Washington HS in Sioux Falls, SD, since 2005. She enjoys reading, watching K-Dramas, Harry Potter and hanging out with her family. Archives
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