Book Review of „We Move Together“

Authors and Illustrators Kelly Fritsch, Anne McGuire and Eduardo Trejos

Published in 2021, “We Move Together” is a colorful picture book about a mixed group of children navigating the world, bumping into barriers, and experiencing joy and community while literally “moving together” throughout the book. Across the pages, the characters move together in different ways: on bikes, scooters, crutches, wheelchairs, or even shopping carts. Written and illustrated by the self-acclaimed author-illustrator team of Kelly Fritsch, Anne McGuire, and Eduardo Trejos, the book emerged from frustration with stories lacking good representation of the disability community, their experiences, and their culture. They therefore took matters into their own hands and created a beautiful picture book with captivating illustrations that acknowledges and celebrates the diversity of its characters while underlining the key ideas of disability justice.

“We Move Together” is an own voices book, reflecting disabled experiences and representation in terms of the book’s content and production. Anne McGuire and Kelly Fritsch are both university teachers who read, write, and teach about disability. Eduardo Trejos, the illustrator, is a Costa Rican multi-disciplinary artist with a love for color (which is very much reflected in the book). Feedback from children, colleagues, educators, and activists from the disability community was integrated after a first draft of the book, ensuring various authentic representations. And it shows: the characters feel both authentic and multidimensional and are not solely defined by their disability. The book follows a very intersectional perspective: The characters have different races, ethnicities, and cultures; they have different kinds of (visible) disabilities, different ages, and religions, and they use different (and authentic) kinds of wheelchairs or crutches. Children will have fun discovering the many details, which are immaculate in terms of diversity: On one page, two men are walking down the streets with their child in a trolley; on another page, children will see two mothers using sign language while grocery shopping, without being the main focus of the page. There is much implicit representation of various marginalized groups. The children with disabilities are part of the group and are accepted just like everyone else.

The book tackles a wide variety of themes and ideas related to disability. It addresses the different ways people move, be it slow or fast, having to take a break, while not saying one is superior to the other, just recognizing that there are multiple ways to move. It mentions accessibility while still recognizing barriers and how they can be overcome. Community and the joy of being part of a community are big topics, and their depiction is a strength of the book.

What is really striking about the book is that it recognizes injustice (here: mostly lack of accessibility), addresses it as a problem, but doesn’t let its character suffer. It focuses on the joy people with disabilities experience and the feeling of community, rather than painting disability as something isolating (as unfortunately many books still do). It encourages young students with similar experiences and lets students without disabilities question how they perceive the world.

The story addresses barriers but still paints a very hopeful, somewhat distant future where everyone lives together in harmony despite the multiple struggles marginalized people face. The question is whether that utopian view is a bad thing. The book shows that you can make a difference if you want to and the importance of fighting against injustice. However, it is not done and dusted by just building ramps. To dismantle ableism, further steps need to be taken. Therefore, the book also shows the importance of activism, and fighting for change.

What makes the book special is that it features well-known figures from the disability community, such as disability activists Alice Wong (Founder and Director of the Disability Visibility Project), Patty Berne, and Leroy Moore, who are all illustrated on the pages. The book also includes a glossary explaining its key ideas and takes a closer look at the illustrations. It refers to the different figures featured in the book and explains concepts such as ableism and accessibility.

The writing style is quite simple. The book draws you in: with little but well-curated text on the pages, the bold illustrations speak volumes. Young students of EFL will not be familiar with all the vocabulary. The vocabulary and grammar reflect A1 language competence, with mostly easy sentence structure, and the illustrations support the meaning.

As some people have visual or hearing impairments, the official website of “We Move Together” offers a number of free accessibility resources: an accessible e-book, text descriptions of the book’s illustrations, captions, American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation, and audio description. These resources mirror the book’s essence of a more accessible and inclusive world. 

“We Move Together” is suitable for children in primary school, who have at least a basic foundation in English. The book builds on their language knowledge and allows them to interact with the themes of the book. The colorful nature of the book is very appealing to children. For use in the EFL classroom, the children will need some guidance; careful preparation is recommended. A traditional storytelling lesson with a pre-, while-, and post-activity is well possible. The website of “We Move Together” also provides educational resources, including ideas on the implementation in the classroom. However, they are not directly intended for the EFL classroom. Still, it might give some ideas for activities or topics that can be talked about and are easily adaptable to EFL (Link). Possible activities mentioned (that are fun for the EFL classroom) are asking the students about the different ways they move, letting them move fast and slow, and asking for their impressions (“What did you notice?”) or letting them draw and cut  (“build”) their own ramps. The website provides corresponding material.

One small weakness in terms of use in the EFL classroom is that the book doesn’t follow a continuous storyline. Characters do reappear, but it is not a story with a big arc of tension, which might feel boring to some children. However, everyday situations like eating ice cream, going shopping, and spending the day by the river are all familiar situations to young learners, and they feel meaningful and authentic.

The reactions to the book have been widely positive. Many readers have said that they had been waiting for a book like “We Move Together” without being aware of it, expressing the impact the book would have had if they had been able to read it earlier. Disability justice advocate Lydia X.Z. Brown describes “We Move Together” as

a love letter to the next generation of disabled kids, and a provocation for their nondisabled peers to rethink an ableist society’s assumptions about how our bodies should move, what they should look like, and how our brains should work.

https://wemovetogether.ca/about-the-book/

Many other reviewers have also applauded the diverse representation of marginalized people without any need of justification. Members of the disability community are able to see themselves reflected in the book, showing the book’s immense impact.

In conclusion, “We Move Together” is a wonderful, joyous storybook with a wide variety of authentic representations in terms of disability and diversity that is well suited, important, and fun for the EFL classroom.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 JMK (2026)