Growing up, Scout Bassett felt like an outsider. Her earliest memories are from an orphanage in China, where she had to figure out how to live with a life-altering disability. She found kindness and hope when another girl offered Bassett help navigating the orphanage.
After Bassett was adopted by a family in the U.S., she felt had to navigate a new world and felt lost until she found running. Scout Bassett is a Paralympic medalist and now, she’s sharing her story in a new book, Lucky Girl: Lessons on Overcoming Odds and Building a Limitless Future. Bassett remembers her first race with a running prosthetic on, when she was 14 years old: “I was able to move faster than I ever had in my whole life. And so to wait that long to feel wind as you’re moving was just incredible.”
Bassett spoke to NPR’s Lakshmi Singh about how her journey in navigating her identity in this book, as part of the NPR app-exclusive series, The Sunshine Project.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
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Interview highlights
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