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The sculptor Gina Klawitter is including a sculpture of Jennifer in her series of people with disabilities. Her relative Tom Olin, a disability rights photographer, has over the years taken many stunning portraits of Jennifer in action at demonstrations. Many other people have been inspired by Jennifer. It is Jennifer's story.Īnything else unique or impactful you can share? I never could have done this particular book without Jennifer's help and, frankly, I would not have wanted to. She and her family were unfailingly patient and helpful as I tried to make sure I got her story just right. She did formal interviews with me as well as many telephone and email exchanges to answer particular questions. I worked with Jennifer throughout the process. It has to choose the ground it will occupy, and do that as well as it can. But ultimately, a picture book cannot sprawl. After all, she has continued to be an activist, and today there continue to be issues of access for people with disabilities. I had to leave out lots of fascinating bits, which is always painful.įor a few drafts, I tried to continue Jennifer's story well past the Capitol Crawl.

Jennifer's life-like anyone else's-is complex and multi-faceted. But it was tricky to know what needed to come earlier in the book. I always knew that the Capitol Crawl would come near the end of the book-it's a dramatic and important moment. How did the writing process go? Did you bounce ideas off of Jennifer as you went? Jennifer's courage and determination as a child inspired me, and I think it will inspire lots of kids to know that an eight-year-old can make a difference in the world. I love stories of people who are relatively unknown but whose courageous actions have an outsize impact-people who nudge the world in new directions. Why did you want to write about her story?

It took some detective work to find a way to contact her, but she has been open, generous, and enthusiastic about sharing her story with kids. I knew that hers was a story I wanted to tell, but only if she was willing to tell it with me. It didn't take me very long to find the Capitol Crawl and Jennifer. So I went looking for a way into telling the story of the ADA. I realized that kids today probably had no idea that the world had once been so different. My children attended school with kids with disabilities-something that was unthinkable in the elementary school I attended. I saw cut-away curbs, Braille elevator panels, and close-captioning on movies. Then I had watched the world of public spaces radically transform in the next few years, making space for people with disabilities. A few years later I had watched the news coverage about the ADA with great interest, thinking about my college acquaintances, and was very happy to see it pass. I had classmates at UC Berkeley in the mid-1980s who managed to navigate campus life with disabilities, but it wasn't easy for them. As soon as I had posed the question that way, I knew what I wanted to write about: the Americans with Disabilities Act. I decided I should write about something from that time that I remember being important. That's history for kids, but for me it was my young adulthood. With a foreword by Jennifer and backmatter covering the specifics of her life and the history of the disability rights movement, this important picture book shines a light on youth activism and disability rights and inspire young readers to speak up for what is right.Ībout three years ago I was startled to notice that several books for kids were being published about historical events in the 1980s and 1990s. Publishing on the 30th anniversary of the Capitol Crawl and the passing of the ADA, All the Way to the Top chronicles the life of Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins and her determination to fight for disability rights, even after the Capitol Crawl. But Jennifer was determined to represent kids with disabilities. Soon, Jennifer decided to participate in the Capitol Crawl, a public demonstration by disability activists to convince lawmakers to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).Īdult disability activists told Jennifer that she was too young. She is arrested for the first time when she is seven. She is stopped by the lack of ramps to buildings at school, not allowed to eat lunch with her friends, and shunned by her peers.Įager to prove that she can do anything everyone else can, Jennifer joined the disability rights movement and participated in her first protest when she is six years old. As a young girl in the early 80s, Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins, diagnosed with cerebral palsy two years after she was born, realized that she wasn’t treated equally compared to her able-bodied peers and friends.

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