This Is How We Play

A Celebration of Disability and Adaptation

By: Jessica Slice, Caroline Cupp

A jubilant, inclusive, luminously illustrated picture book that features families at play, each with a family member who has a disability.

With love and adaptation, this is how we play! This joyful audiobook with an empowering refrain, from disability rights activists Jessica Slice and Caroline Cupp, demystifies and respects how disabled people and their families use adaptive, imaginative, and considerate play so everyone can join in the fun.

Back matter consists of a kid-friendly guide to thinking, learning, and talking about disability; a glossary of the different disabilities represented throughout the book; and a guide for grown-ups on ways to encourage discussions about disabilities with the children in their lives. Throughout, This Is How We Play centers, affirms, and encourages the disabled children and adults who are already doing the challenging work of advocating for themselves and finding strength in community.

©2024 Jessica Slice (P)2025 Listening Library

Critic reviews

"[T]his buoyant picture book spotlights how, 'with love and adaptation . . . we play!' Slice and Cupp utilize rhyming couplets on each spread to show play in inter-abled relationships." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Slice and Cupp, themselves disabled, realistically acknowledge challenges while keeping an upbeat, reassuring tone . . . Harren’s detailed portrayals of myriad physical, sensory, and developmental conditions warmly embrace disability’s broad spectrum, and characters’ faces radiate love and enthusiasm . . . A wonderfully inclusive celebration of disability and family." —Kirkus

"[A] joyful and empowering exploration of families at play . . . [Harren's illustrations] are balanced between bold foregrounds and muted backgrounds, creating very inviting pages to explore beyond the relation to the text. A must purchase for all libraries to fill much needed positive disability representation in picture books." —School Library Journal