Books with Deaf Characters Post 11 - River of Hands
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.