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About the Author |
| Don Meyer is the Director of the Sibling Support Project of The Arc of the United States and the creator of the Sibshop model. His books include Views from Our Shoes, Uncommon Fathers, and Living with a Brother or Sister with Special Needs. He has conducted more than 200 workshops for siblings, parents, and service providers in the United States and all over the world. He lives in Seattle with his wife, Terese, and their four children.
Visit the author's website!
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2006 Independent Publishers Book Awards:
Finalist in Juvenile-Teen-Y/A Non-Fiction Category
Give teenagers a chance to say what's on their minds, and you might be surprised by what you hear. That's exactly what Don Meyer, creator of Sibshops and author of Views from Our Shoes did when he invited together a group of 80 teenagers, from all over the United States and abroad, to talk about what it's like to have a brother or sister with special needs. Their unedited words are found in The Sibling Slam Book, a brutally honest, non-PC look at the lives, experiences, and opinions of siblings without disabilities.
Formatted like the slam books passed around in many junior high and high schools, this one poses a series of 50 personal questions along the lines of:
- "What should we know about you?"
- "What do you tell your friends about your sib's disability?"
- "What's the weirdest question you have ever been asked about your sib?"
- "If you could change one thing about your sib (or your sib's disability) what would it be?"
- "What annoys you most about how people treat your sib?"
The Sibling Slam Book doesn't "slam" in the traditional sense of the word. The tone and point-of-view of the answers are all over the map. Some answers are assuredly positive, a few are strikingly negative, but most reflect the complex and conflicted mix of emotions that come with the territory. Whether they read it cover to cover or sample it at random, teenagers will surely find common ground among these pages and reassurance that they are not alone. It is a book that parents, friends, and counselors can feel confident recommending to any teenager with a brother or sister with a disability.
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