It’s the first day of elementary school. Some children are scared of letting go of Mom’s hand, some are excited to make new friends. Others are anxious about getting their peers to accept their physical differences, which is why novelist Shelley Fraser Mickle started Wild Onion Press.
The Gainesville-based company publishes books starring children with physical differences.
“It is a hard thing to do to try to get the general public to embrace physical differences,” Mickle, 68, said. “No one wants to go there.”
Mickle had polio as a child and was paralyzed from the waist down, causing her to wear leg braces. While writing about her experiences growing up in her memoir, “The Polio Hole,” she realized there was a gap in the publishing world. There were few books featuring children with differences, and through this revelation, Wild Onion Press was born.
“I was pretty outraged when I thought about how few books feature children with physical differences in heroic roles,” she said. “They’re usually objects of pity. They’re objects in which someone comes forward to save them and we need to reverse it.”
The company has published 10 books since it was founded in April 2009, the most recent called “The First Day Speech,” by Isabelle Hadala. Hadala was born with ectodermal dysplasia, a condition that halts the development of fingers, teeth and toes. On her first day of first grade, Hadala gave a speech to her classmates, encouraging them to “take a good look at her and get over it,” as Mickle said.
“So that bravery and that spunk really touched me,” Mickle said. “I’ve held onto that whole idea for a long time.”
Mickle could be a character in one of her company’s books, turning her polio struggle into a memoir, writing acclaimed novels and now starting Wild Onion Press, an endeavor she’s found to be the most rewarding accomplishment.
“I’ve had a movie made, a New York Times notable book and all these wonderful things, but none of that has measured up to how this makes me feel,” Mickle said. “What I’m doing in this last chapter of my career is giving me more satisfaction than I’ve ever had.”
The publishing company’s bestseller, “The Gift of Grace,” by Grace Mary McClelland, is about a girl with a congenital hand difference. Another book, “Jason and Elihu,” by Mickle, was added to the Just Read, Florida! Summer Reading List.
The books are currently sold in Alachua and Marion county Publix stores. Also Follett, an educational distributor, included the company in its business, a step closer to Mickle’s goal to get the books into every school and national public library.
“What we want to do is get into schools where we will make lasting change of the culture, of perceptions of physical differences,” Mickle said.
Mickle got to see the change begin in a kindergarten class when she read “The Gift of Grace” to it. There was a 5-year-old girl missing her right hand listening intently to a story about a heroine named Grace just like her.
“You could just see her flower,” Mickle said. “By sharing their story they become more than their physical presence. They become the spirit for change.”
