August days are dwindling fast, but there are enough left for one last summer read. In case you’re looking for a book worthy of the last lazy, hazy days of summer, here are my top 5 books for the special needs community.

A Good and Perfect Gift: Faith, Expectations, and a Little Girl Named Penny by Amy Julia Becker. Penny, the author’s first child, was born with Down Syndrome. In A Good and Perfect Gift, Becker describes how she and her husband came to accept their daughter’s diagnosis and wholly embrace who God created her to be. Becker writes beautifully, and she tells the story with warmth and transparency.

 A Story Unfinished: 99 Days with Eliot by Matt Mooney. Before Eliot Money was born, he was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, a condition generally incompatible with life. His parents, Matt and Ginny Mooney, determined to count every day with Eliot a gift. Eliot lived 99 days, and in A Story Unfinished, Matt tells of God’s goodness and redemption even during the dark days he and Ginny experienced. This book comes with a tissue warning.

In Dancing With Max, Emily Colson how she and her son Max, who lives with autism, learned to do life together. She exposes both the joys and challenges of raising her son with special needs with transparency and humor. A masterful storyteller, Colson will make you laugh and cry and long to experience the delight of dancing with Max.

Unbroken Faith: Spiritual Recovery for the Special Needs Parent and it’s author Diane Dokko Kim were featured in a series of Different Dream posts last spring. In Unbroken Faith, Kim describes how her son Jeremy’s autism diagnosis weakened her faith and how she learned to lean on God’s strength instead of her own.

Eunice: The Kennedy Who Changed the World is a new book about Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the woman known best as the founder of Special Olympics. Biographer Eileen McNamara explains the origins of Shriver’s passion for children with intellectual disabilities and how she was the driving force behind the Maternal and Child Health and Mental Retardation Planning Amendment to the Social Security Act, the last piece of legislation signed by John F. Kennedy before his death.

There you have it…my 5 fave books for the special needs community. If you want to give your favorite special needs-related book a shout out, leave a comment in the box below.

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