by Sarah Yates
"People with cerebral palsy become characters in my books because they are part of everyday life. Their activeness in their own lives is reflected in my fiction. They work to create their own destiny as any of us do,” author Sarah Yates told Toronto writer, Gloria Hildebrandt in a recent article for Good News Toronto.
Sarah formed Gemma B. Publishing in 1992 to develop literary heroines for the disabled, emphasizing their active participation in life. Her three books follow Ann’s adventures from the first day she goes to school and encounters questions.
Lucky Lou Gets Game features a completely different heroine. Lou is a teenager with cerebral palsy who learns to take on a neighborhood with no idea how to cope with a generation that so readily mixes up the abled and disabled. Lou is funny and she has attitude. Her cousin Sam has never understood why she can’t play baseball, as he does. He doesn’t take her disability as an excuse. When Sam and his friends coach Lou and her motley crew, the baseball game has unexpected results. Lou gets the boy who was never in her dreams and learns to speak up for herself.
Lucky Lou Gets Game was a first cut in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Competition in 2010.