Archive for January, 2010

Books with Deaf Characters Post 11 – River of Hands

January 24, 2010 @ 2:50 pm · Filed under Books, Deaf Characters, Review

River of Hands is a small book of 4 short stories written by deaf children. Well, young adults really. Two of the stories are completely original, the other two are variations on stories that are frequently told among Deaf people.. in Canada and the US, apparently. Since this book is a Canadian book. But as most of Canada uses American Sign Language, I suppose it makes sense.

Each story has deaf characters in it — the two original stories have Deaf kids as the main characters. And those are the two stories I much preferred. One is about a couple of boys who go fishing in the toilet. Hey, boys have to amuse themselves somehow, right? The other is about two girls who make friendship bracelets out of cursed beads. This one uses the ‘was it all a dream?’ trope, but I’ve found you have to forgive that in kids. Heck, it’s not like I’ve never done it myself!

Since there is signing in the stories, some of the stories have illustrations of some of the key signs afterwards. The fish story has a fish showing us the signs for fishing! Bet you didn’t know fish had hands and fingers, did you?

Yes, the stories are written by kids, and they’re pretty short, but I did like this book for what it was. Two fishy thumbs up.

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Books With Deaf Characters Post 10 – Discovering Friendship

January 17, 2010 @ 11:37 pm · Filed under Books, Deaf Characters, Review

Discovering Friendship by Sharona Kadish, illustrated by Dee DeRosa, is a picturebook.

A hearing girl tells the story of a new girl at school who’s ‘hearing impaired’ and how the two quickly (very quickly!) become best friends.

I was going to be rather harsh on this one, but then I got to the end and the About the Author section. Turns out this was written by a girl in sixth grade. She won a contest to get it turned into a book. Of course she’s in her late 20′s now, but still. Kudos to her for A) Writing a book and B) Winning a contest.

So considering the author and that it was published in 1994, it’s not bad. But as for whether I’d recommend it to someone today? No. Not as a book about a deaf kid. Maybe as a book written by a kid. To point at and say ‘Look, you can do that too!’.

One problem is that the girl is always called ‘hearing impaired’. So I can’t even tell if she’s deaf or hard of hearing. Though she does sign, so I lean towards Deaf, whichever she is. ‘Hearing impaired’ may sound PC, but it’s not a preferred term. If it ever was.

She wears a hearing aid with wires that probably lead to a battery pack. The hearing aid is never mentioned, so that’s only in the artwork. So, just a bit of dated illustration.

The story itself is simplistic and cheesy. Sappy. Bit preachy. If the story had developed over the course of months rather than days to the point where she’s chatting away in sign language and buying a ‘best friends’ necklace, it would seem a little more realistic and a little less corny.

If you’re looking for books to buy or to check out of the library, give this one a pass.

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