Wendy Lu: Casting April (Trach Tube)
- 30 minutes ago
- 3 min read
"There were no books about kids
with my disability, so I wrote one."
When people meet me, the first thing they usually notice is the white cylindrical tube around my neck. “It’s called a tracheostomy tube,” I say, when they inevitably ask. “It helps me breathe.” Sometimes they pray for me, insisting that God will cure me one day. Other times they call me courageous, or even ask to take a photo up close of my tube. “I’ve never seen anything like that before,” is their justification. Most people haven’t.
That’s why I wrote my new novel, “Casting April.” It follows a 12-year-old girl named April, who also wears a tracheostomy tube. More importantly, she is deeply passionate about theater, and has the acting chops to match. After she auditions for the starring role in her school play, she finds out that the theater director, Ms. Rooney, decided not to cast her for one reason only: She has a disability. Her parents also don’t think it’s a good idea. So April hatches a plan to prove to everyone that she’s good enough to be onstage. Along the way, she learns what it means to believe in herself.
The book comes out on June 16 from Penguin Random House, and it’s one of the only books that features a kid with a disability like mine. (In fact, I can’t think of any others!) I was inspired to write “Casting April” in part because I loved doing theater as a kid myself. The first role I played was a chicken in “The Ugly Duckling,” when I was in second grade. At family gatherings, my cousins and I would act out the scene featuring “So Long, Farewell” from “The Sound of Music.”
I took theater as an elective in school, played improv games with my peers, and auditioned for shows, though I was never cast. I never felt like I fit in with the other thespians at my school, so eventually I joined a community theater group that was full of supposed “misfits.” (The oldest member was a blind woman in her 90s, and she was quite possibly the most talented member of our troupe!) I sang in a Christmas musical alongside other kids my age, and I played a seemingly innocent girl named Cindy who turned out to be a cunning prankster. Being a part of this group made me feel like I could be myself, even as I played other characters.
That’s part of what my main character, April, loves about acting as well. But she has to fight tooth and nail to get a fair chance at the spotlight. The more she wants people to focus on her talent, the more it seems they focus on her disability instead, whether with doubt, curiosity or apprehension. In the same way that people have called me courageous, Ms. Rooney calls April “brave” simply for being disabled. But April doesn’t feel brave — because she has had her trach tube all her life, and that’s all she has ever known. She swallows the compliment awkwardly, letting it roll off her.
As the book progresses, April learns to speak up for herself and be honest with other people about her disability. The truth is, she says at one point to a friend, her disability isn’t a big deal until other people make it so. I’ll leave it up to readers to find out whether she ends up onstage by the end of the book or not.
My hope is that “Casting April” reminds people that rejection — even from authority figures — does not have to mean the end of a dream. What matters more is not what other people think of us, but how we view ourselves. Disabled people are often capable of way more than others give us credit for. And, à la Alexander Hamilton, the eponym of April’s favorite musical, we should never throw away our shot.
Wendy Lu is a journalist, a children’s book author, and a global speaker on disability representation in the media. She is the author of Casting April, about a girl who is determined to land the starring role in her school's play — except nobody believes she can do it because of her disability. For years, Wendy has worked as an editor and a reporter covering disability, politics, and culture. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, HuffPost, Teen Vogue, Refinery29, and more. She was named on Forbes’s 30 Under 30 for her efforts to improve disability coverage. She is represented by Abigail Frank at Greenburger Kids. Wendy lives in New York with her husband, Andrew, and their turtle, Little Cloud.