Children's literature or young adult literature is often seen as an elementary and casual genre, but people overlook the powerful tools it acquires in modelling attitudes and shaping children's minds. Various studies point out that society's behaviours and attitudes towards disability and people with disability are primarily based on popular culture and not personal encounters or experiences. Disability has always been an inseparable part of children's movies and stories from the beginning of times, only the magnitude to which it has been revealed has changed. This literature is seen as the most important as it introduces the world to young minds, and hence the impression it creates in children's minds would not easily be eliminated. It is also noted that young children accept differences and generate positive, acceptive attitudes during their early ages as they are less resistant and have little foreknowledge. This paper examines the disability representations in children's literature and traces the changes it has undergone as a genre from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first century. Two children's books are selected for this study, “Heidi” by Johanna Spyri and “Rules” by Cynthia Lord. The differences in the portrayal of disability and disabled characters in these novels are studied through content analysis, character study, comparison and by analyzing the linguistic symbols. This paper also ventures to decipher the norms and societal values the stereotypes were based on, and it also attempts to account for any changes.

Differences and disabilities have always been a part of oral tradition and folklore. These differences greatly influenced story-telling that eventually stemmed from oral tradition. The western canon has included disability in their literature for some time now, but their portrayal of disability from the beginning to the twentieth century has drastically improved. Fairytales and folktales were historically associated with values and morals, and the moral system during the olden times was completely patriarchal and abelistic. The tales never offered any space for disability to exist as a simple part of an individual's life. This paper aims to investigate the representation of disability in Disney's version of Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale, "The Little Mermaid", and attempts to understand disability in the light of fairytales. There are some major and vital differences between the original story by Hans Christian and the movie by Disney, but do they accommodate positive signals that counteract the ableist society? Does the movie reflect the truth about a disabled person's life? Or is it still a profusion of negative elements that reinforce oppression and discrimination? This paper examines the narratives employed in the movie and the original fairy tale and attempts to address the issues of identity, stigma, and stereotypes based on the representation of disability in both genres.