Suitabook

And I Climbed And I Climbed

Stephen Lightbown

Reading: Read a few poems at a time, pausing to notice shifts between pain, anger, humour and hope. Invite the child to choose what to discuss, rather than treating disability as a lesson to extract.
Themes: Living with disability after sudden change: Cosmo becomes a wheelchair user after falling from a tree and considers whether his former life is gone and what new possibilities may exist. Disability is presented through difficulty, pain and uncertainty, but also through curiosity, humour, agency and possible new abilities.
Questions without easy answers: Cosmo wants to speak with the tree and asks why the accident happened. The book does not clearly resolve its stance on this.
Complex representation rather than a single disability narrative: The collection uses Cosmo’s voice to present observations and reflections that are perceptive, raw, hilarious, confronting and enchanting. Cosmo’s full emotional and imaginative life is foregrounded, while the author’s wider work is described as challenging reduced perceptions of disability.
Worth knowing: Some readers may want support around Cosmo’s fall, resulting disability and the emotional upheaval that follows. The writing is described as confronting and painful as well as humorous and hopeful.