Sarah Yates’ Active Heroines with Cerebral Palsy

2011-05-03

Sarah Yates, a former resident of Toronto, has long been deeply involved in the arts and arts advocacy, especially for the Professional Writers Association of Canada and Canadian Artists Representation.

“I have always tried to be involved with copyright, better and fairer treatment of writers, and with discussions between writers which recognize our commonality, not our competitiveness,” Sarah says. “I’ve always liked artists. Creativity is a form of problem solving, outside the box. It hones your mind and opens you to the possibilities and to a more productive and interesting life.”

A writer of hundreds of articles for national and international magazines, Sarah co-wrote Toronto Then and Now (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1984) and a book about the Royal Alexandra Theatre, still unpublished. “In Toronto, I learned to seek out my passions and to follow them, finding work that related to them. As a whole person, committed and growing in work that you love, you are stronger and write better. You live better.”

In March she published her fourth children’s book about a feisty heroine who lives well with cerebral palsy (CP). Lucky Lou Gets Game is a young-adult novel featuring a teenaged heroine with CP who learns to play baseball. In growing toward independence, she learns to advocate for herself, and even gets the boy she sets her heart on.

Sarah’s three previous books for children also feature a girl with CP who cannot talk with ease and is confined to a wheelchair. Can’t You Be Still?, Nobody Knows!, and Here’s What I Mean to Say… have become classics in their field. “My daughter was born disabled,” says Sarah. “I decided to use my writing to advocate for her, especially when I couldn’t find children’s books that featured active heroines with a disability. I wanted a literary heroine with whom my daughter Gemma could relate — one who couldn’t run, jump, or shout aloud.”

What makes this fourth book different? “Lou has different skills. She has more attitude. She’s a teenager after all, a different kettle of fish. She has a boy companion who is not disabled, because that’s what I observed in Gemma’s school life. She still has those friends. The younger generation mixes up the able-bodied and disabled much more readily than we ever did.”

Currently active with the Cerebral Palsy Association, Sarah knows many people, young and old, with CP. “They become characters in my books because they are part of everyday life,” she explains. “Their activeness in their own lives is reflected in my fiction. They work to create their own destiny, as any of us do.”

Sarah developed puppet shows to enrich her public readings. “They’re great for storytelling. Children love them. My first puppet show (Nobody Knows!) became the second book in my trilogy.” Sarah built a puppet theatre and studied voice and puppetry skills. “My second show, Here’s What I Mean to Say…, is more complex. Both use humour. The children and even adults loved it,” she says. “I performed regularly until I did the show at an international children’s festival, then put them to bed and focused on other books and other characters.”

Sarah’s books are available at Amazon.com and her own website, gemmab.ca. In Toronto, contact Parentbooks.

“I hope these books provide a good read, a good laugh, and a recognition that disabled people have active lives and lots of ideas for their lives,” says Sarah.