Someone Special, Just Like You - Hardcover

Here are children singing, dancing, going down slides, and blowing bubbles. A girl with a sly smile carefully crosses a balance beam. Out on a science trip, two boys step close enough to touch the glass wall between themselves and a huge porpoise. One young child smells a lovely flower, another splashes in a pool, and a third bangs on a tambourine. Here are children discovering the world around them, at home and with their friends.

All of these children are doing the things that children like to do the children in these photographs have handicaps. Although they may not walk, talk, hear, or see the way that others do, that doesn't make them different in their need to experience life completely. Each child in Someone Special, Just Like You is a full participant in the joys and pains of childhood.

The wonderful pictures and words presented here are an important first step in helping children, parents, and teachers to understand that the differences that seem to separate these children from others are not important. What is important is the common delight in life: a desire to love, learn, and play, and to be accepted for themselves, as other children are.

The photographs in Someone Special, Just Like You were taken at four different preschools in the San Francisco Bay Area. These preschool are for children with visual impairments, hearing impairments, physical handicaps, and mental handicaps.

Tricia Brown is also the author of Hello, Amigos! and L'Chaim: The Story of a Russian Émigré Boy. She has traveled extensively in southeast Asia and is a member of the Chinese Culture foundation. She has a master's degree in international multicultural education and lives in San Francisco, California.

Fran Ortiz, an award-winning photojournalist, was also the photographer for Hello, Amigos! In 1981 he was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for his social documentary on the Mono Indians. He lives in Kensington, California.