Reviews

Apple Is My Sign by Mary Riskind

leigh_ann_15_deaf's review

4.5

 The author is a child of deaf adults (CODA). 

The only reason this isn’t 5 stars is how ASL vs. English is represented. She writes the signed dialog in broken English style. She explains why in the foreword, wants to capture that ASL ≠ English, but as I always point out, this isn’t done with spoken languages, and it annoyingly singles out signed languages and makes them “less than” English. 

Harry’s parents are deaf too and never went to school—but writes in perfect English. Dictated? It's never explained. 

Schoolmates aren’t perfect. Friends, bullies, crushes, teachers are diverse and realistic. 

One-on-one speech lessons don’t go well. (Realistic that the signing school has speech lessons!) Becomes voice/breath lesson—how to expel air from the throat to produce a sound (voice). 

Good representation of differing ideologies about deaf people's capabilities (e.g., only hearing people can be teachers) from the preacher and then mother’s rebuttal. Moreover, these ideologies are realistically complex—while mother believes deaf people can do things like teach, she also hopes that her deaf friend’s baby will be born hearing. 

In short, these characters aren’t one-dimensional and have growth.

 

Deaf reader reviewing books with deaf characters. This book is listed on my ranked list of books with deaf characters: https://slacowan.com/2023/01/14/ranked-deaf-characters-in-fiction.