Thinking Big: The Story of a Young Dwarf

by Susan Kuklin

Text and photographs depict the life of an eight-year-old dwarf who lives in an average-sized family and attends a regular school.

Genres: Nonfiction

48 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1986

Reviews

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ages 4 and up. This book is out of print, but well worth the search, portraying a day in the life of an 8-year-old girl with achondroplasia, the most common type of dwarfism. She is great at painting, but needs stools to reach things at home and school. She has friends who hold her hand so she won’t get left behind on hikes, but she talks openly about the kindergartners who call her “baby.” She loves going to Little People of America meetings, but she loves being at home with her mom, dad and younger brother best of all. This book accompanied me from preschool to 5th grade, read aloud by my new teacher to the class at the beginning of the school year in order to explain why I looked different from the others and to encourage my classmates to be upfront with their questions.

[Isaac Timm · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this little book while researching achondroplasia for a short story I am writing. My local library does having a large selection on types of dwarfism, or little people, well not in the non-fiction section anyway. Thinking Big is book about an eight year old girl named Jaime and her family. Jaime take joy in being different even through it causes your some medical difficulty, an operation to her spine and concerns about legs and joints. She takes everything in stride. The author shows her young subject in a straight forward manner as a little girl not someone to be pitied or discounted. In Jaime's words "I am like everyone else, just little." It is a very simple but profound message.

[Krista the Krazy Kataloguer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This non-fiction book about the daily life of a dwarf girl was written before the TV program about the dwarf family-- the name of it escapes me-- became popular. I wish more books like this were written, and I wish this one were still in print.