Riding the Bus with My Sister: A True Life Journey

I work with people with intellectual disability pretty much all day every day. By doing so, I've learned that there's a the range of people and personalities among those with ID is no smaller than that in the typical population. However, in the public conscious and most media, people with ID are children, or the object of Important Lessons, or benevolent figureheads. So I found Rachel Simon's memoir about the time she spent with her sister Beth, an adult with ID, a beautiful and nuanced story. Beth is passionate about buses, bull-headed, hates racism, is man-crazy and matter-of-fact. And Rachel pulls no punches, being completely transparent with the reader about Beth's peaks and valleys and about Rachel's own flaws in her ability to deal with Beth patiently. I really appreciated Rachel's honesty about her worries, frustrations and impatience with Rachel – I think it's important to share our dark times.

The book is organized into 12 months, each of which has a chapter about Beth and the bus, a chapter about Rachel's introspections and a chapter about their past. The middle of these was by far the weakest, and felt kind of shoehorned in. Examples include one and a half pages about person-first language. A personal revelation that she should make more friends and becomes the Giver of Wisdom to the bus drivers, over two pages. Beth is really the life of the book. But I think this was overall a touchingly sincere book about a rarely discussed topic.

What a great bus ride! Did Beth ever turn the tables on Rachel! Rachel agrees to meet up with Beth every month and ride the buses with her, something Beth loves to do. Beth is mentally disabled and Rachel feels she will be helping her sister. And she does, in a way. But, more, Rachel learns from Beth and from Beth's mentors, the bus drivers, the really important things in life that Beth knows and Rachel has always missed.