An essential book about ways to make the world more accessible for everyone

As a chronically ill person, I am often asked about my disability. Sometimes I talk to people who have never heard of disability discrimination, and I realize that I’ve just walked into a much bigger conversation than I originally imagined. In these moments, I am so grateful for advice from writers like Tiffany Yu.

Yu is the founder of Diversability, a community venture that increases disability pride, and her TED talk: How to help employees with disabilities be successfulhas over a million views. But I first came across her work on TikTok, where she is the creator of the Anti-Ableism series. She speaks to viewers in such a warm and inviting way that I knew I had to check out her book – and now it’s finally here!

Yu has worked incredibly hard to make the text as accessible as possible in as many different ways. As a child, Yu was in a car accident that left her right arm paralyzed, and she was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. She uses her personal experiences as a springboard and shares anecdotes from her life to illustrate her arguments. She organizes her book by topic, each with easy-to-understand structures that take the reader by the hand and guide them through her ideas. And the chapters build on each other, helping readers understand their arguments.

Early on, she focuses on appropriate language, etiquette and the history of disability. From there, she expands on ideas for how readers can help make the world around them more accessible. At the end of each chapter, Yu includes reflection questions that help readers think through the information they have just read and encourage them to create action plans for implementing anti-ableist practices in their own lives.

The anti-ability manifesto is not just for people new to the world of disability. This book is also perfect for experienced disability advocates. There are countless ways to become disabled, so there is no one-size-fits-all solution to disability. So we can all learn something about making the world we live in more accessible for everyone.