Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies 12.3 (2018) © Liverpool University Press ISSN 1757-6458 (print) 1757-6466 (online) https://doi.org/10.3828/jlcds.2018.24 “Just Like Me, Just Like You” Narrative Erasure as Disability Normalization in Children’s Picture Books Tanja Aho and Grit Alter University at Bufalo / University of Innsbruck Narrative Erasure as Disability Normalization The article analyzes contemporary representations of disability in children’s picture books that elide visual markers of diference in the name of inclusion. Based on detailed readings of the picture books Susan Laughs (Willis) and My Pal, Victor/Mi Amigo, Víctor (Bertrand) from a media literacy perspective, the argument is that a potentially productive inclusion of characters with disabilities can lead to their narrative erasure by constructing the disability as an individualized problem that needs to be hidden. This narrative erasure and individu- alization of disability is also prevalent in pedagogical texts including current English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbooks in Germany, where disability is only superfcially engaged. The investigation of online commentaries confrms that the promotion, circulation, and reception of children’s picture books remains strongly embedded in an ableist framework that manifests in “special needs” language use, inclusion discourses, and overcoming narratives. Contrasting these two picture books to No Fair to Tigers/No Es Justo Para los Tigres (Hofman), the article encourages a DisCrit discourse about picture books that juxtaposes individualized readings of disability with narratives about disabling societal structures that do not shun depicting the lived reality of impairment. Introduction While the feld of disability studies has expanded its analyses of represen- tations of disability over the past decades, education studies is ofentimes still entrenched in classical special education discourses, even if these are accompanied today by calls for inclusion and respect for diversity. In this article, we ofer a synthesis for these divergent traditions, bringing together our work in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) studies (Grit Alter), and cultural and literary studies (Tanja Aho). We thus address not only the representation of disability in children’s picture books, but do so from a pedagogical perspective that is equally concerned with the production, circulation, and reception of ideas about disability in classrooms and online. Given the importance of picture books as one conduit through which youth are exposed to social ideas about disability, we hope to see much more engagement with them by disability studies and education studies scholars alike.