2024-2025
2024-2025 Go Big Read: Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body by Rebekah Taussig
A memoir-in-essays from disability advocate and creator of the Instagram account @sitting_pretty Rebekah Taussig, processing a lifetime of memories to paint a beautiful, nuanced portrait of a body that looks and moves differently than most.
Growing up as a paralyzed girl during the 90s and early 2000s, Rebekah Taussig only saw disability depicted as something monstrous (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), inspirational (Helen Keller), or angelic (Forrest Gump). None of this felt right; and as she got older, she longed for more stories that allowed disability to be complex and ordinary, uncomfortable and fine, painful and fulfilling.
Writing about the rhythms and textures of what it means to live in a body that doesn’t fit, Rebekah reflects on everything from the complications of kindness and charity, living both independently and dependently, experiencing intimacy, and how the pervasiveness of ableism in our everyday media directly translates to everyday life.
Disability affects all of us, directly or indirectly, at one point or another. By exploring this truth in poignant and lyrical essays, Taussig illustrates the need for more stories and more voices to understand the diversity of humanity. Sitting Pretty challenges us as a society to be patient and vigilant, practical and imaginative, kind and relentless, as we set to work to write an entirely different story.
Author Website: Rebekah Taussig
2024-2025 Author & Book Information
Press Release
Read Chancellor Mnookin’s Press Release about the book: ‘Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body’ chosen as 2024-25 Go Big Read book
Facilitating Book Discussions
Go Big Read 2024-2025 Book Discussion Guide — Accessible PDF file for viewing and downloading. If you run into any concerns with the accessibility of this file, please email the Go Big Read Program Coordinator (Bethany Willig, bwillig@wisc.edu) with your concerns.
Curriculum Support Materials
2024-2025 Go Big Read Canvas Module for Curriculum Integration
(If this link is not directing you to the correct page, please try logging into Canvas in your browser before clicking the link. If that does not work, search “Go Big Read” in Canvas Commons.)
2024-2025 Go Big Read Discussion Question Canvas Module
Cooperative Children’s Book Center Reading List — Lived Disability Experiences: Books for Children and Teens
Center for Campus History Teaching Guide on Disability — History of Disability at UW-Madison
Writing Across the Curriculum — Guide on How to Create Assignments Related to 2024-2025 Go Big Read
Video on Disability History at UW
Media
Wisconsin Public Radio – University of the Air Interview
Kansas City’s NPR Interview (KCUR)
National Endowment for the Arts Book Summary and Discussion Questions
Keynote Event
Featuring Rebekah Taussig (author) and Chancellor Jennifer L. Mnookin
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
7:00 – 8:30 P.M.
Union South — Varsity Hall, Section II (Free and open to the public. No tickets required)
Marketing Toolkit
Go Big Read Marketing Toolkit – Reusable images for the program
Still have a question or need additional materials or resources? Feel free to reach out to the Go Big Read program at gobigread@library.wisc.edu.