When Jamie Berube was born with Down syndrome in 1991, he was immediately subject to themedical procedures, insurance guidelines, policies, and representations that surround every child our societydesignates as disabled.??In this wrenching yet ultimately inspiring book, Jamie's father, literary scholar MichaelBerube, describes not only the challenges of raising his son but the challenge of seeing him as a personrather than as a medical, genetic, or social problem.

Michael Berube is director of the program for research in the humanities at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.He is the author of five books, including Public Access: Literary Theory and American Cultural Politics, and has written forThe New Yorker,The Village Voice, and many academic journals.He lives in Champaign, Illinois, with his wife, Janet Lyon, and their two sons, Nick and James.