You’re Not You, by Michelle Wildgen,

274 pages, 2006, $23.95. Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, (646) 307-5151, www.stmartins.com.

In this novel, Bec, a college student with an unformed sense of herself and her future, hires on as a caregiver to Kate, a sophisticated woman in her 30s with ALS.

Bec’s tangled relationships with her lover, a married teacher; with Evan,

Kate’s husband; and with Kate herself force Bec to come of age through lessons about the meaning of identity, commitment and loss.

In the course of bringing Bec through her trials, Wildgen richly imagines the lives of both a person with ALS and her caregivers. Not every reader will approve of the story Wildgen tells, but no one will complain of the way she tells it: the prose is lucid, the plotting is sure-footed and the characters compelling.

intense focus on the child comes at the expense of fully enjoying their own lives. The co-authors of this book both have children with special needs. They formed an organization named Shifting View to provide inspiration and practical strategies for parents with special needs children. To date they’ve counseled more than a thousand parents through coaching sessions and workshops. Those experiences established the groundwork for Building a Joyful Life.

The basic premise of this book is that no matter what the disability or challenge — physical, developmental, learning or mental health — parents can take control of their own lives and find happiness while ensuring the best for their children.

Health Insurance Resources: A Guide for People with Chronic Disease and Disability, 2nd ed., by Dorothy E. Northrop, Stephen E. Cooper and Kimberly Calder; 215 pages, 2007, $26.95. Demos Medical Publishing, (800) 532- 8663, www.demosmedpub.com.

First published in 2003, this book in its second edition has been completely updated. It’s an excellent resource for people living with disability and chronic health conditions who seek to understand our bureaucratic maze of health care regulations. Equally important: It offers guidance so those people can get the most out of their rights and entitlements within the system.

Subjects addressed in the book include Medicare and Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) and State Health Insurance for High-Risk Individuals (the latter broken down by state). Separate chapters deal with application procedures for SSI and SSDI, as well as how to initiate grievances and appeals.

Appendices provide valuable information about state pharmaceutical assistance programs, children’s health insurance programs and definitions of acronyms that inevitably seem to emerge from federal terminology.

Building a Joyful Life with Your Child Who Has Special Needs, by Nancy J. Whiteman and Linda Roan– Yager, 204 pages, 2007, $19.95. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, (866) 416-1078, www.jkp.com.

While all parents want the best for their children, parents of a child with special needs sometimes discover that their

Married with Special Needs Children: A Couple’s Guide to Keeping Connected, by Laura E. Marshak and Fran Pollock Prezant, 296 pages, 2007, $24.95. Woodbine House, (800) 843-7323, www.woodbinehouse.com.

The publisher says this is the “first book for parents to examine the stress that is often placed upon a marriage when a couple has a child with a disability.”

Put more bluntly: Only for a limited time can a couple endure sleep deprivation, have no time whatsoever outside the presence of their children, and actively battle with government bureaucracies to obtain proper medical care and educational services.

One of the co-authors is a psychologist and marriage counselor; the other directed a large parent training and support program. Both have children with disabilities — and longstanding marriages. They rely partially on their own professional and pers on-al experience, but also include in their book hundreds of comments, anecdotes and perspectives from parents with special needs children.

The result is a compendium of advice on how to find or achieve a sense of unity and connectedness, time alone as a couple, strategies for coping with stress, and community resources and support outside the family. q