LITTLE PEOPLE
By Dan Kennedy

Dan Kennedy is a liberal media critic for a weekly newspaper, the Boston Phoenix. In his telling, President Bush is a moron, a right-wing cabal controls the country and Rupert Murdoch is the philistine who has sullied world-wide media.

There are those of us who prefer to ignore such rants. But "Little People" (Rodale, 296 pages, $24.95) is not ignorable. It is extraordinary, a heartfelt yet not maudlin story of the achondroplasia -- dwarfism -- of Mr. Kennedy's young daughter. The book is both a brief history of "little people," the preferred term for dwarfs these days, and a description of life with Rebecca, now 11, who was diagnosed with the condition shortly after birth.

Mr. Kennedy describes the presence of little people in the art of masters like Velazquez and their role as "pets or jesters" for Roman emperors and European royalty. He also takes a look at the eugenics practiced in the U.S. and Britain decades before the Nazis embraced the "science" with a horrific zeal. Dwarfism was one of the traits that eugenics scheduled for elimination.

The author doesn't congratulate his family for coping with this twist of fate, but he clearly comes across as a compassionate man. And compassion is not a simple Hallmark sentiment, as one of Mr. Kennedy's anecdotes shows.

At a fair in Boston, Mr. Kennedy gave his daughter a ticket for a kiddie roller coaster. The man operating the ride wouldn't accept the ticket and Mr. Kennedy wanted to know why. The fellow replied: "It's all right. I have a daughter who's handicapped."

It was meant as a kind gesture, but Mr. Kennedy notes: "I was stunned. My daughter was getting charity at an amusement park because she was different-looking. And she was getting it from someone whose own life experience should have taught him that most disabled people would rather stand on their own two feet, whether they're able to do that literally or just figuratively."