Nicole’s Story: A Book about a Girl with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis (Meeting the Challenge
Virginia Totorica Aldape (Author), Lillian S. Kossacoff (Photographer), li Kossacoff (Author)

From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 5?Eight-year-old Nicole has Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. Her parents are divorced; she has a cat at her mother’s house and a dog at her father’s house. She attends Catholic school and likes to draw and read. She suffers a lot of pain, her medicine causes her to gain weight, and she often uses a wheelchair. When Leslie was a baby, meningitis caused brain damage. In spite of her disability, she celebrates her Bat Mitzvah, skis, and takes ice-skating lessons, and has skated in the Special Olympics. She sometimes has to deal with kids who are cruel, but she has friends and an understanding family who support her. Most books about mental retardation for children concern Down’s syndrome; this one portrays a different kind of child who has achieved some memorable goals. In both titles, black-and-white photographs, at least one per page, show the girls in their activities at home and at school, which are not very different from those of most middle-class children. The first-person narratives give an all-around view of the special and mundane aspects of their worlds and conclude with information about the condition under discussion.?Martha Gordon, formerly at South Salem Library, NY
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
This book informs children about juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA) and how it affects a person. It illustrates how 8-year-old Nicole is more like other children than different from them. Nicole tells about her everyday life and explains the modifications necessary for her disability…
Several sections of the book provide specific information about…the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. A list of organizations’ names and addresses is also provided…

This well-written story provides an excellent way to give children accurate information about a specific disability and what life is like with a disability. Rehabilitation nurses would find this book useful when educating a child who has just been diagnosed with JRA. Nurses involved in community outreach programs and school nurses could use the book to educate students and teachers about the special needs of a classmate with JRA. — Rehabilitation Nursing, Sep/Oct 1998

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