Tatyana McFadden last Saturday won her 20th Paralympic medal—8th gold—and set her 3rd world record! A new picture book biography traces her life from an orphanage in Russia, to being raised by two moms, to becoming “the fastest woman on Earth.”
Fastest Woman on Earth: The Story of Tatyana McFadden, by Francesca Cavallo and illustrated by Luis San Vicente, begins in Russia, with a poor woman leaving a baby on the steps of an orphanage. When the other babies started to walk, however, Tatyana realized that she could not walk on her feet like them, but had to walk on her hands. The book explains that she has a condition called spina bifida. This meant that while her friends climbed trees with their arms and legs, she used only her arms, and became “incredibly strong.”
One day, a woman named Deborah visited the orphanage and they made a connection—Tatyana knew the woman would be her mother. The woman returned the next day with gifts, including a wheelchair, and Tatyana was “blown away by how fast she could move.” She went home with the woman to the United States and discovered she would be raised by not one mom, but two. She learned English, tried many sports, played with other children, and was “the strongest student in her class.” Sometimes, though, people saw her in her wheelchair and focused on what she couldn’t do—but then they learned that she could do “almost anything. She just needed to do it her own way.”
Her favorite sport was racing in her wheelchair, so when her coach suggested she race in the Paralympics, she said yes. She kept racing—and kept winning. She also won a silver medal in cross-country skiing during the Winter Paralympics in Russia, where her birth mother joined her two moms to watch her for the first time. The book ends with a lovely image of the three of them hugging her.
I love the book’s emphasis on McFadden’s capabilities and on the wheelchair as a tool of power and freedom, not a symbol of restriction as currently abled people often see it. San Vicente’s illustrations are appropriately dynamic and swooping and emphasize Tatyana’s strong and expressive arms. Tatyana and her family are all White, as are the children in the Russian orphanage; background characters in the United States are a mix of skin tones.
My only small suggestion, which has nothing to do with the main plot, is about a line that says when visitors to the orphanage adopted a child, “the child would have parents and the visitors would have a daughter or son.” Saying “the visitors would have a child” would have been more inclusive of all gender identities. There’s no sense that any of the children in the orphanage are nonbinary, but there’s no sense that they aren’t, either. A small tweak would simply have been good practice around inclusive language, especially from a publisher whose mission is to “radically increase diversity in children’s media.”
Tatyana’s mom Deborah wrote a one-page forward to the book, noting that Tatyana is “an educated and accomplished athlete who just happens to be in a wheelchair.” An afterward offers some additional details about Tatyana’s life, including her role as producer and star in a movie about the Paralympic movement, her work advancing the rights of people with disabilities, and her Master’s degree in education. One additional page shows five blank medals and invites readers to “Give yourself a medal every time you do something your own way!”
This is an engaging and recommended biography of a woman whose dedication and skill have made her the best in the world at what she does. I’m sure her moms would agree.
Bonus fact: Tatyana’s mother Deborah was also a competitive athlete and born with a disability. Her advocacy for people with disabilities led President George H. W. Bush to appoint her United States commissioner of disabilities in 1989, where she helped write the Americans with Disabilities Act. After Tatyana faced discrimination from her own high school’s track team, the two of them also helped pass the federal Sports and Fitness Equity Act, enabling students with disabilities to participate in school sports.
