Ten Books By 2024 Summer Paralympians You Should Read Now

The way people view disability is far from reality. Sports have always been a unifying force, while also being at the forefront of societal change. Sports make us more—more determined, more powerful, more ourselves. And they show the world what is possible.

Through sports, athletes with disabilities show people what they are capable of so that it’s no longer a surprise, so that they’re not always an inspiration.

But sport isn’t the only way that defines an athlete’s identity or humanity. So as we gear up for the 2024 Summer Paralympic Games in Paris, there are ten books by Summer Paralympians who are competing in Paris that you should read now. In various ways, these books shed light into the individual and unique journeys of the authors as well as provide you with insights into questions that you may have wanted to ask, but didn’t.

The Hard Parts – A Memoir of Courage and Triumph by Oksana Masters

The Hard Parts is Oksana Masters gripping account of overcoming the Chernobyl disaster to creating a life that challenges everyone to push through what is holding them back. Masters was born in Ukraine in 1989 and faced numerous physical challenges due to in utero radiation poisoning from Chernobyl. After living in three orphanages, she was adopted by an American mother at the age of seven.

Although Oksana is America’s most decorated Winter Paralympian got her start at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, winning the first ever U.S. medal in trunk and arms mixed double sculls (rowing). She has also a part of the U.S. Nordic skiing team at the 2014, 2018, and 2022 Winter Paralympics At the 2016 and 2020 Summer Paralympics, she switched to para-cycling, winning two gold medals at the latter. In all, Oksana has won seventeen medals in four sports. In 2020, she won the Laureus World Sports Award in the category of “Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability.”

Breaking Free – Shattering Expectations and Thriving with Ambition in Pursuit of Gold by McKenzie Coan

This memoir by three-time Paralympic swimming gold medalist and world record holder McKenzie Coan was just published in August 2021. Coan, who was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, or brittle bone disease, was never expected to sit, stand, walk, or even possibly live.

But she has spent her life defying the odds. Coan launched her successful swimming career at the age of 8 and got started early at BlazeSports, a Move United member organization based in Georgia. She would go to compete at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London and found herself atop the podium three times at the 2016 Rio Games. She is seeking more gold at the Tokyo Paralympic Games this year.

Breaking Free tackles many of today’s hot topics in sport and in life, including discrimination, goal setting, mental health, self-care, and body image, while following Coan from infancy in a rural community to the international stage as a professional athlete. It is a story of grit, determination, disability, athleticism, family, humor, and hope. I hope through my story, I can inspire others to look past the obstacles they may face and chase their
dreams,” Coan said.

Limitless: The Power of Hope and Resilience to Overcome Circumstance by Mallory Waggerman

On January 21, 2008, a routine medical procedure left Mallory Weggemann paralyzed from her waist down. Less than two years later, Weggemann had broken eight world records, and by the 2012 Paralympic Games, she held fifteen world records and thirty-four American records. After that, she would experience another devastating injury when she fell and severely damaged her left arm. But she refused to give up. After reconstructive surgeries and extensive rehab, she would go on to win two golds and a silver at the 2019 World Para Swimming Championships.

Through all that, Weggemann found confidence and independence. Her extraordinary resilience and uncompromising commitment to excellence are rooted in her resolve, perseverance, and sheer grit. In this book, Weggemann shares the lessons she learned by pushing past every obstacle, expectation, and limitation that stood in her way, including the need to:

-redefine limitations;

-remember that healing is not chronological;

-be willing to fail;

-and embrace your comeback.

Weggemann’s story reminds us that whatever circumstances we face, we have the capacity to face down whatever challenges, labels, or difficulties confront us- and to do so on our own terms.

The Power of Choice: My Journey From Wounded Warrior to World Champion by Melissa Stockwell

On April 13, 2004, Melissa Stockwell lost her leg to an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) during a routine patrol in Iraq, making her the first female soldier to lose a limb in the Iraq War. This was just the beginning of her story of perseverance and triumph.

Stockwell has been a restless force of nature from the time she was a high-level gymnast and Olympic hopeful to when she joined ROTC in college. After 9/11, she was deployed to Iraq as a commissioned Army officer, where she suffered the injury that would change her life forever. After a long and challenging recovery at Walter Reed Hospital, she exercised her power of choice to channel her energy into competition, winning three Paratriathlon World Championships and medaling at the 2016 Rio Paralympics.

In addition to serving her country, Stockwell’s journey includes the heartache of a painful divorce, co-founding Dare2Tri (a Move United member organization based in Illinois), and launching her career in prosthetics. Along the way, she finds new love and becomes the mother to two children. Her story is riveting, moving, and an inspiration for anyone who would choose to live their life to the fullest.

Sammy Swims by Jamal Hill

This children’s book follows the main character, Sammy, through his first day of school where his enthusiasm for school takes a dive when he receives an unexpected invitation to a classmate’s pool party. Sammy is ashamed to admit that he’s never learned to swim until he meets a swim champion that teaches, not only him, but his family, to swim.

Jamal Hill is an American Paralympic swimmer, from Inglewood, California. He has the degenerative disorder Charcot-Marie-Tooth and represented the United States at the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo, Japan where he won a bronze medal. He is the president of Swim Up Hill Organization, a non-profit foundation, whose mission is to teach 1,000,000 people to swim.

The Book of Tahl: From Homelessness to Paralympic God by Tahl Leibovitz

He stands 5’3” on badly deformed feet. Bone tumors prevent him from straightening his arms or flexing his wrists. His hands and feet sweat excessively, forcing him to change socks several times a day. And from the age of 14 to 21, he was homeless, sleeping in subway cars and on roof tops, stealing food, clothes and money, and defending himself from the violent attacks of those who prey on the homeless.

Forty-nine-year-old Tahl Leibovitz is one of the most highly decorated and celebrated American table tennis players of all-time, a Paralympic Gold Medalist and USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame inductee who will represent the U.S. at the 2024 Paris Olympics/Paralympics in late August. He is also a high school dropout who went on to earn four college degrees, including a master’s in social work from New York University’s Silver School of Social Work. Today, he is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a thriving psychotherapy practice in New York City.

Tahl’s memoir, The Book of Tahl: From Homelessness to Paralympic Gold, has all the ingredients of a modern-day retelling of the Horatio Alger story: Childhood illness, abusive alcoholic father, bipolar mother, a homeless teenager hustling for survival on the streets, and a remarkable storybook ending as a world-famous professional athlete and prominent psychotherapist.

Losing Vision, Not Dreams: Reflections on My Teenage Years by Noah Malone

When Noah was 13, he was diagnosed with Leber’s Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON), a rare genetic disease that leads to central vision loss. His vision quickly deteriorated from 20/20 to 20/600 and 20/400 in his left and right eyes, respectively. Noah was a rising track and field star, and suddenly, he was legally blind.

“People have asked about my journey on many different occasions. After several months of writing down my thoughts, stories, and experiences, I’m happy to finally share that my first book is now available.”

Unsinkable: From Russian Orphan to Paralympic Swimming World Champion by Jessica Long

Swimmer Jessica Long is the second most decorated athlete in U.S. Paralympic history. Born in Siberia, Long was adopted from a Russian orphanage at thirteen months old. Because of fibular hemimelia, she would have both of her lower legs amputated just five month later.

Long tried a number of sports, but swimming was (and definitely has been) the best sport for her. Growing up, the prosthetics were giving her trouble. “But in swimming, you don’t wear prosthetics,” she said. “I felt free and not any different.” Swimming also allowed Long to become comfortable with who she was. Challenges still persisted though. She experienced a number of growth moments and calculated having over 20 surgeries. “There were lots of moments I could have given up,” she said.

Now the Baltimore, Maryland native shares all the moments, medals, and milestones in her life—big and small, heartbreaking and uplifting—that led to her domination in the Paralympic swimming world in this photographic memoir. Filled with photographs, sidebars, quotes, and more, the book is geared towards 10-12 year olds. We’ll all be watching to see if she can add to her medal count at her fifth Paralympic games in Tokyo.

Ya Sama! Moments from My Life by Tatyana McFadden

17x Paralympic Medalist Tatyana McFadden (seven gold, seven silver, and three bronze) worn with spina bifida, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. She’s competing at her sixth Paralympic Games in Tokyo (which includes one winter event).

McFadden played a variety of sports growing up, including wheelchair basketball, sled hockey, swimming, gymnastics, many of them at Kennedy Krieger Institute, a Maryland-based member of Move United. “That program saved me, “she said. “It taught me be to be independent and I learned a lot of valuable lessons in addition to sports.” She would try to compete in high school but was denied. Her family led the effort to change that in her state. “No one should be denied the opportunity.”

Ya Sama! Moments from My Life is written for middle-school readers, but the book’s engaging first-person narrative will appeal to people of all ages. McFadden’s story of optimism and perseverance will resonate with anyone confronted with obstacles in life, whether great or small. Ya sama is a Russian expression that means “I can do it.” Early in her life, McFadden has held this guiding belief that she could do anything she set her mind and imagination to do. The result is a life that goes beyond just surviving tragedy to actually using her unique situation to become a success both on and off the racing track.

From the Ground Up by Trevon Jenifer

Trevon Jenifer was born without legs, a condition called congenital amputation. Despite growing up in a poor, crime-infested neighborhood just outside Washington, D.C., Jenifer let neither his body, his environment, nor his family’s financial hardship deter him from pursuing dreams any two-legged person would have.

Those pursuits were limited to wheelchair sports in his first 15 years, but Jenifer dreamed of playing with the rest of society. When his family sacrificed its savings for his safety and moved to a predominantly white, middle-class suburb before his junior year in high school, Jenifer, at the urging of his stepfather, decided to try out for the school’s wrestling team. Even though he had never wrestled and had no friends on the team, Jenifer yearned to play a contact sport and was ready for a new challenge. Not only did Jenifer thrive on the mat, he used his wrestling success to assimilate seamlessly into a new community.

Jenifer’s life is a study of determination, and a celebration of achieving overwhelming success in spite of adversity at nearly every turn. Throughout his life, he has accomplished what he has been told he could never do. That continues today, as a member of the U.S. wheelchair basketball team that is hoping to repeat its gold medal performance in Tokyo.

We know the power of sport and how it pushes what’s possible for people with disabilities. Hopefully these books will help fuel conversation, confront ignorance, and incite action that leads us to a world where everyone’s included. And hopefully, each of these books help shift the narrative from disabled to this abled.