This Kind of Child: The 'Disability' Story – By Srilata K. (Author)

Step into a profoundly moving, transformative exploration that dismantles how society defines normalcy, human worth, and institutional belonging. In This Kind of Child: The 'Disability' Story, acclaimed poet, academic, and author Srilata K. delivers a landmark work of narrative non-fiction and creative prose. Driven by a mother's fierce love and an academic's clinical precision, this essential book serves as an eye-opening, screen-free reference text that exposes how our educational and social architectures actively disable individuals who do not fit a rigid, standardized mold.

The book's genesis began intimately, centered on the author's own daughter—a child deemed by an alternative school principal as "this kind of child" due to minor learning differences that the rigid system was unforgiving of. However, Srilata K. quickly realized that her daughter's journey was part of a much vaster, systemic landscape. Blending raw first-person accounts, deeply personal interviews, and poignant short fiction, this volume offers a multi-perspectival understanding of the lived disability experience. It frames disability not as a medical deficit to be cured, but as a profoundly political and heartbreakingly social construct. At its core, this Westland publication explores the philosophy of inter-being, asking a foundational question: What does it truly mean to love, accept, and accommodate someone fully in a world obsessed with performance and perfection?

Rather than letting its layered, emotional testimonies blur into an unorganized format, This Kind of Child structures its vital sociology across four clear, highly scannable thematic quadrants: