Kennedy, Dan. Little People: Learning to See the World through My Daughter's Eyes. Rodale, 2003, 288 pages, $24.95, hardcover, 1-57954-668-4.

Reviewed by Kristina Torres, The Ohio State University

I have been waiting for a memoir that explores the complexity that exists as a person with a disability, an individual, becomes a member of a community that is bound by social construction and the need for group identity. I have to admit, I had great expectations – the memoir would tell an excellent story; enlighten both the experienced disability scholar and the reader who never knew disability culture existed; and it would accomplish all of this without choppy transitions, cute anecdotes, and sporadic rants. Granted, these memoirs do exist. However, I am a writer with a disability and in the deluge of memoirs celebrating overcoming disability or wallowing in the horrors of living with a disability, I needed to know if there was anyone who could add a new perspective. Hence my pleasure when I read Dan Kennedy's Little People.

Kennedy, a senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix, became the father of Rebecca (Becky) Elizabeth Kennedy in 1992. Kennedy and his wife Barbara found out that Becky had achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism, when a Boston doctor "filling in at the special-care nursery for the weekend, was concerned about the size of Becky's head" (p.25). After this news, Kennedy embarked on a quest "to find meaning and purpose in Becky's having a life-altering genetic difference" (p.3). For many writers this could be dangerous territory. One could fall into the trap of being so intent on celebrating the person and proving her disability is a stigmatized, scorned identity, that the person gets lost in the cultural analysis.

Little People skillfully avoids this. Kennedy frames his memoir around diversity – how we value or fear difference and the consequences of eliminating it. He readily admits to the reader that reality is complicated. When the medical world has taught our culture to understand disability as defect, how do we embrace it as difference? If the cultural attitude toward disability insisted that Becky was imperfect, "a dwarf not a person" (p.58), how would Kennedy teach his daughter she was a person with dwarfism, an individual capable of representing herself and influencing able-bodied perceptions of her small stature? Indeed, the greatest strength of Little People is the way it navigates through these questions.

Kennedy begins by introducing the reasons for his diversity/difference model. He grounds the reader in the story of Becky's birth and first ICU experiences, while highlighting what it means to become the parent of a dwarf. The memoir then expands into sections that explore the history of dwarfs as spectacles; the dynamics within Little People of America and the larger dwarfism community; the distinct relationship between dwarfs and the eugenics movement; religion and superstition; language; the disability-rights movement; and limb-lengthening. Throughout the memoir, Kennedy circles back to Becky – her growing awareness of her difference and first encounters with Little People of America.

Little People consistently introduces a person who influenced Kennedy's perception of dwarfism, details his or her history independent of Kennedy, and then emphasizes the conversation occurring between the two. Barbara Kennedy was the exception – a fault of the memoir. Although physically present, her "voice" is often provided in summary or through Kennedy's own. However, I feel that Kennedy gives ample respect and credit to his wife in the chapter "The Storm Before the Calm", which details the dynamics between able-bodied parents, their child with a disability, and the seesaw effect home health care and insurance had on their lives. Even with the absence of Barbara's voice, we are aware of her invaluable role.

Kennedy has obviously done extensive research. Numerous members, past and present, dwarf and average sized, of the little people community provided not only lasting impressions, but detailed knowledge of what is currently at stake within dwarf culture. Ruth Ricker, Dr. Dror Paley, Dr. Michael Ain, the Strattons (Mr. and Mrs. Tom Thumb), Jacki Clipsham, and Billy Barty were some of the more reoccurring personalities in Little People. Kennedy weaved the discussions of disability scholars, such as Rosemarie Garland Thomson ("Seeing the Disabled: Visual Rhetorics of Disability in Popular Photography", The New Disability History: American Perspectives, NYU Press, 2001), Erving Goffman (Stigma, Simon & Schuster, 1963), and Adrienne Asch (Prenatal Testing and Disability Rights, Georgetown U. Press, 2000) into the memoir. His conclusions were smart and his curiosity propelled the narrative forward. With so many distinct voices joining his own, Kennedy made Little People an ideal choice for use with students of Disability Studies.

Under the umbrella of "people with disabilities," numerous communities exist. Each chooses the level of involvement with the greater disability community and confronts their own histories of eugenics, access, language, and culture. What Little People adds to Disability Studies is the process of finding and understanding how the dwarfism community hovers among us. It reminds the reader that little people have faced the same socially constructed disabilities, the same medical threats. Yet the difference, the value of Kennedy's Little People, is the way it causes us to finally recognize the largely overlooked culture of dwarfism.