Little People: Learning to See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes
- ISBN-10
- 1579546684
- ISBN-13
- 9781579546687
- Category
- Biography & Autobiography / General
- Pages
- 288
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2003-10-17
- Publisher
- Rodale Books
- Author
- Dan Kennedy
Description
A week after her birth in 1992, Dan Kennedy's firstborn daughter was diagnosed with achondroplasia, the most common type of dwarfism. Reassured by doctors that Becky would have normal intelligence and a normal life span, Dan and his wife, Barbara, quickly adjusted to the reality of her condition. What wasn't so easy was grasping people's attitudes toward those with physical differences.
In Little People, award-winning journalist Dan Kennedy explores dwarfism from ancient times, when dwarfs held an honored position in some cultures, to more modern days when they were featured in freak shows and treated as human guinea pigs by Nazi scientists. While sharing his own poignant experiences, Kennedy works in wonderful passages about dwarf subculture, including the fever pitch of the dating scene during the annual Little People of America convention, and the caste system that exists among those with different varieties of the condition. Kennedy profiles individuals whose small stature has helped them to succeed, and others who have allowed themselves to be exploited and abused.
But the most controversial ground covered in the book is the author's hard look at medical screening procedures, or designer genetics, that already make it possible for parents to eliminate differences ranging from dwarfism to Down syndrome and could soon target genetic traits such as manic depression and homosexuality. While it is true that there has never been a better time for those who are outside the mainstream, whether one is wheelchair-bound, mentally challenged, or gay, it is also clear that most parents do not wish these differences for their own children. Kennedy argues that there is a cultural value to preserving differences, and that eliminating them may harm society in unpredictable ways.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
The Memoirs of Lieut. Henry Timberlake
By Henry TimberlakeThe Memoirs of Lieut. Henry Timberlake
-
Interviews with William Carlos Williams: "speaking Straight Ahead"
By William Carlos WilliamsDr. Williams discusses his own work and that of such contemporaries as Pound and Eliot and reveals his thoughts on a wide variety of twentieth-century concerns
-
雪球：巴菲特傳（最新增訂版）
By 艾莉絲．施洛德巴菲特畢生唯一授權傳記 全球首富與世人分享最慷慨的資產 除了股票，巴菲特更教你投資自己 ｜最新增訂版｜新增第63章危機、第64章雪球 ...
-
遇見安徒生
By 安徒生（H.C.Andersen）、葉君健本書內容分三部分:一為葉君健所寫評論安徒生其人其文的文章;二為安徒生所寫小故事;三為安徒生繪圖作品
-
Alta California, 1840-1842: The Journal and Observations of William Dane Phelps, Master of the Ship "Alert"
By William Dane Phelps276-9 , 403-3 ) ; William Richard Cutter , Genealogical and Personal Memoirs relating to the Families of Boston and Eastern Massachusetts ( N.Y. , 1908 ) , II , pp . 867-69 ; William Bentley , The Diary of William Bentley ...
-
Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of a Citizen of New-york, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853,...
By Solomon NorthupTwelve Years a Slave: Narrative of a Citizen of New-york, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853,...
-
Behind the Scenes. by Elizabeth Keckley. Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House.
By Elizabeth KeckleyBehind the Scenes. by Elizabeth Keckley. Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House.
-
Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton: For Four Years and Four Months a Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) in Washington Jail
By Daniel DraytonPersonal Memoir of Daniel Drayton: For Four Years and Four Months a Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) in Washington Jail
-
Journalists of the United States: Biographical Sketches of Print and Broadcast News Shapers from the Late 17th Century to the...
By Robert Bingham Downs, Jane B. DownsWhen the Press folded after eighteen months , Cooper went to the Indianapolis Sun , as a police reporter . In 1901 he became Scripps - McRae's Indianapolis correspondent and then manager of the Indianapolis bureau , supplying news to a ...
-
Give Us Each Day: The Diary
By Alice Moore Dunbar-NelsonGive Us Each Day: The Diary