Memoir
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- 24 April 2026
In Turning a Memoir Into a Picture Book
Ryan Rae Harbuck’s award-winning debut memoir When I Grow Up I Want to Be a Chair offers a keen look into her life after a spinal cord injury in her teens made her a wheelchair user. She’s on a mission to change the narrative of disability, one word at a time. Her new picture book with the same name as her memoir, When I Grow Up I Want to be a Chair, follows Vo, a young girl figuring out who she wants to be.
“Let me know if you’d ever be up for writing a children’s book based off of your memoir!” A moment of pure happenstance from a senior editor at Barefoot stirred something inside of me.
It’s safe to say that I wrote it that very day.
But turning a memoir with themes of grief and overcoming trauma into a story meant for kids should be harder to write, right?
That’s just the thing, though, I think that story had been sitting in me, idly, waiting for the chance to come out. Waiting quietly for nearly 30 years.
Having been paralyzed by a car accident
