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Max is first and foremost a fun picture book about a sport-mad boy with a powerful imagination. It also tells us that deaf and disabled children can - and should - be included, both in stories and in life.
Author: Sean Stockdale and Alexandra Strick
Illustrator: Ros Asquith
Publisher: Frances Lincoln Children
Sport-mad Max turns aspects of his daily routine into daydreams of major sporting events. As he dives into his cereal, he imagines plunging into an Olympic-sized swimming pool (and receiving a perfect score of ten). With a sprinkle of fantasy, his bike ride to school is transformed into a high-speed bobsleigh descent. The story is packed full of visual references to disability and inclusion: children in wheelchairs, oxygen tubes, leg braces and eye patches can be spotted in the illustrations, as can a child with cherubism. Max himself wears a hearing aid and uses an asthma inhaler.