Little People: Learning to See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes - Hardcover

Dan Kennedy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1579546684 ISBN 13: 9781579546687

Publisher: Rodale Books, 2003

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Dan Kennedy is senior writer at the Boston Phoenix; his articles have also appeared in publications such as The New Republic, Salon, and Slate. He is the editor of the Little People of America Web site. He lives in Danvers, Massachusetts, with his family.

From the Back Cover

"So much for us to consider as we go through this extraordinary book-- how fate and chance determine the circumstances of our lives-- all told in wonderfully affecting and summoning language by a thoughtful and introspectively energetic father and writer who shares with us a family's life and in so doing helps us to become his companions in human understanding."--Robert Coles, best-selling author of The Moral Intelligence of Children and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Children of Crisis

"Dan Kennedy writes in a friendly, trustworthy voice about difficult topics: difference, prejudice, and disability. Little People has the form of memoir and the effect of social commentary. Its power is cumulative. Using his own parental anxiety and curiosity as a bridge, Kennedy makes unfamiliar experience accessible."--Peter D. Kramer, best-selling author of Listening to Prozac and Spectacular Happiness

Becky Kennedy was more than her parents had bargained for. Born a dwarf, her early medical problems nearly overwhelmed the family's resources. But as surely as she recovered and grew into a healthy little girl, Becky became more than Dan and Barbara Kennedy could have hoped for: not merely a miniature likeness of themselves, but a little person with such a unique perspective that she opened their eyes to a whole other world.

In Little People, Dan Kennedy confronts the deepest of parental fears: What if my child is different? His search for an answer provides a penetrating look at how our culture of diversity clashes with the reality of disability and the belief that we have a right to the so-called perfect child.

From the Inside Flap

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.

Dan Kennedy is senior writer at the Boston Phoenix; his articles have also appeared in publications such as The New Republic, Salon, and Slate. He is the editor of the Little People of America Web site, LPA Online (www.lpaonline.org). He lives in Danvers, Massachusetts, with his family, and can be reached through his personal Web site at www.dankennedy.net.

Reviews

In this compelling but unbalanced work, the father of a young girl with dwarfism explores how her condition shapes her life as well as his. Kennedy, a journalist by trade, leaves few aspects of being a little person unexplored-from circus history and the fate of a Jewish dwarf in Nazi Germany to the current-day exploitation of little people in porn films and the annual convention of the Little People of America. Kennedy doesn't shy away from difficult issues, including the proper terminology for a little person, whether dwarves qualify as disabled, and the ethical question of terminating a fetus carrying the gene for dwarfism. But though Kennedy interviews a staggering number of people, we rarely hear his daughter's voice, making it difficult for readers to "see the world through Becky's eyes," as the subtitle suggests they will. In many ways, this account is more about Becky's effect on Kennedy's life than it is about her own. "The truth is that dwarfism has been a lot better for me than it's been for Becky," he writes. Kennedy's honesty about his difficulty raising Becky is refreshing, but he can occasionally appear emotionally removed. While his straightforward prose style avoids self-pity, it also, unfortunately, often fails to convey warmth. Still, Kennedy offers provocative commentary on the danger of relying on charitable rather than government-funded care for disabled children, and a deep critique of a "culture in which the disabled and their families are seen as being somehow responsible for their own misfortunes." 16-page photo insert.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Rodale Books
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1579546684
• ISBN 13: 9781579546687
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288