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Books
Learn more about Jessica's available and upcoming books.
Her book about disabled parenting, Unfit Parent, was shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Work-In-Progress Award.
Unfit Parent
A disabled mother challenges an inaccessible world
Unfit Parent, examines the obstacles that disabled parents face, the societal beliefs that undergird those barriers, and the political and economic systems that hold it all in place. Unfit Parent explores how disability culture and the strengths inherent in having a body like mine would, if included in parenting culture, make contemporary parenting more sustainable.
Unfit Parent is available in print, large print, audio, and e-book!
Praise for Unfit Parent
"This is such a glorious, revelatory book. Jessica Slice cuts through all the judgment and stereotypes to reveal the truth: disabled people are, in many ways, uniquely suited to and skilled at parenthood and are sources of wisdom, ingenuity, courage, and joy that the entire world can learn from. I am a nondisabled man with no children and I gained so much from this book."
- Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of An Immense World
“This was a fantastic and most needed book! It was well written, well researched and easy to read. I cannot stress enough how important and good this book was!”
-Lisa, Good Reads review
"Jessica Slice draws from her own experience to write about the unsurprisingly punishing landscape of being a parent and a disabled person in a society that fails to provide support for either. Slice unsparingly explores the challenges, but also spends time in the joy, and the possibility. An essential addition to the motherhood canon."
- Lit Hub
“Jessica has an amazing way of relating her specific story to the generalities of parenting - especially parenting that does not look how you thought it would look. I related to so much of this. Expected to read it as a physician, ended up reading it as a peer.”
-Sophia, Good Reads review
This Is How We Talk
A Celebration of Disability and Connection
This joyful read-aloud, with an empowering refrain, from disability rights activists Jessica Slice and Caroline Cupp, demystifies and respects how disabled people and their families use different forms of communication to connect and show love.
Praise for This is How We Talk
“Featuring exceptional accounts and impactful illustrations of different forms of communication, this book is a true celebration of all people living with disabilities and an invaluable learning experience for children and their grown-ups. This is a first purchase for all collections.”
- School Library Journal
"Beautifully written and illustrated book about the many ways people with disabilities communicate. Readers see them share with families and friends. Each page spread models a different way to connect.... A terrific read together book for families and classes."
-Pam, Good Reads review
“A delightful celebration of disability, family and community, and diverse forms of communication. The illustrations are full of emotion and detail-- kids will enjoy poring over them.”
-Aolund, Good Reads review
“As in the previous book, Harren’s vibrant illustrations depict people using wheelchairs, forearm crutches, prostheses, and more as they enjoy busy lives, warmly reinforcing the lively rhyming text. Backmatter includes information on the communication methods and conditions portrayed here, as well as guides for kids and caregivers on addressing disability. An exuberant and inclusive look at the many ways we all express ourselves.”
-Kirkus
Praise for This is How We Play
"Intersectionally diverse characters are shown interacting throughout this buoyant picture book that spotlights how, “with love and adaptation... we play!” Slice and Cupp utilize rhyming couplets on each spread to show play in inter-abled relationships... Harren’s realistic digital art shows characters of various body types and skin tones using apparatuses for breathing and communication as well as mobility aids, PPE, and more, expanding the text into an inclusively populated world in which play is accessible for all."
- Publishers Weekly
"A wonderfully inclusive book that depicts families that have members with a variety of disabilities as they go about their lives and celebrate many forms of play. Great illustrations and an educational glossary of the disabilities shown in the story... HIGHLY recommended!!!!"
-Shannon, Good Reads review
"This is probably the most diverse picture book I've ever seen... I think this is a perfect mirror book in that it will allow so many to see themselves represented and reflected, but it is also a wonderful window book in that it allows children (and their adults) to see how so many different types of people play.
-Jared, Good Reads review
“Disability rights activists Slice and Cupp present a joyful and empowering exploration of families at play. On each spread, this rhythmic and musical rhyming story explores a new family at play. Every spread has a family member who has a disability and explores how to use adaptive, imaginative, and considerate play for inclusive joy. The affirming refrain says, “With love and adaptation, this is how we play!” Children and adults pictured are shown with mobility aids, service animals, and sensory tools. Families of all different skin tones are depicted with and without masks and in medical offices, homes, and parks.”
-School Library Journal
Praise for Dateable
"Essayist Slice and minister Cupp (coauthors of the picture book This Is How We Play) team up for a noteworthy relationship guide for disabled people. Drawing on personal experience (Slice’s dysautonomia began at 28, and Cupp was born with cerebral palsy) and enlightening interviews with people across the ability spectrum, the authors tackle such challenges as disclosing one’s disability on dating apps, discussing caregiver duties with partners, and having sex in spite of physical limitations. The guidance takes a flexible rather than prescriptive approach—for instance, the chapter on sex advises readers to “expand what sex means” beyond penetrative intercourse and experiment with new strategies, positions, and devices. Other sections explore the intersection between disability and queerness and the higher incidence of sexual assault against disabled people.”
- Publishers Weekly
“Eye-opening. Educational. Chock full of resources sure to be of great benefit to all readers. Humor in all the best places. At the outset I assumed that I wasn’t the target audience. Turns out we should all consider ourselves the target audience.”
Good Reads review
“This is the book I wish I had when I was younger. It’s a book that every disabled person should read, regardless of where they are in their dating journey. It reminds us that our disability makes us just as human, dateable, and desirable as anyone else. Our dating lives may be more complicated, but we deserve to be represented, talked about, and yes, sexualized. We date, we love, we break up, we struggle just like everybody else, and this book puts all of that front and center unapologetically.”
-Good Reads review
“With its mix of astute cultural analyses, quippy personal anecdotes, and deeper dives into sociopolitical and theoretical factors, this book does more than show disabled and chronically ill people that they belong. It also serves as a reminder that it matters how one shows up on dating apps and in relationships, in order to counteract the systems that try to render invisible the people whose bodies don’t conform to social norms.”
-Library Journal Review
We Belong
Judy Heumann and the Work for Disability Rights
Dial Books 2025
Judy Heumann biography written with Judy about her work for disability rights in education. Coming in 2025.
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Disability Visability
Imposter Syndrome and Parenting with a Disability
Vintage Books 2020
Jessica's essay was included in Alice Wong's acclaimed disability anthology.
Learn more about the Disability Visibility anthology here.
Praise for Disability Visibility
“Disability rights activist Alice Wong brings tough conversations to the forefront of society with this anthology. It sheds light on the experience of life as an individual with disabilities, as told by none other than authors with these life experiences. It’s an eye-opening collection that readers will revisit time and time again.”
- Chicago Tribune
"Wow, what a force of a book.
For many who read Alice Wong's Disability Visibility, this anthology will serve as an important jumping-off point into disability discourse as opposed to a final or concluding work. If you go in knowing that it'll leave you with an infinite number of experiences to read more about elsewhere, you'll get a lot out of this book."
- Lily, Good Reads review
“A fabulous dive into the experiences and perspectives of an oft-marginalized group. As someone shamefully ignorant about disability and its many facets, my eyes were opened. The essays bring together a diverse group of voices. Many are in agreeance with each other, but others take opposing perspectives...
Any book that gets me thinking, breaks down barriers, and offers fresh perspective in a winner in my opinion, and this one hit all the marks. Highly recommended!”
- Justin, Good Reads review
“Shares perspectives that are too often missing from such decision-making about accessibility.”
—The Washington Post
“To Alice Wong, words like diversity and intersectionality aren’t just buzzwords. They are marching orders. Everyone should take in the wisdom woven throughout this book.”
—W. Kamau Bell, host of United Shades of America