An interesting story of a particular deaf experience.
Florida seventh grader Rayne is losing her hearing, and neither she nor her parents know how to handle it.
Rayne, an implied White girl, wears hearing aids that she is self-conscious about. It’s getting harder and harder to hear, and now her parents want her to get cochlear implants, which she is desperate to avoid. The dialogue is written with many omitted words replaced with asterisks to represent what Rayne misses, and it is an effective choice. Readers may get just frustrated enough to develop insight into Rayne’s experiences, but the text remains readable and comprehensible. In the end, the lesson is loud and clear: Neither Rayne nor her ears are “broken,” and there is more than one way for her to live with her increasing deafness. Cerra does a good job of presenting many of the pros and cons of cochlear implants, acknowledging that while they help some, they are not a cure-all. Two resources at the end unfortunately undermine the book’s central message: the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, a group that is controversial at best in the signing Deaf community that Rayne ultimately enters, and the Signing Exact English Center. Organizations supporting American Sign Language, a natural language central to Deaf culture in the U.S., are also included. Still, Rayne is a likable protagonist, and readers will root for her. (This review was updated for accuracy.)
An interesting story of a particular deaf experience. (author’s note, discussion questions) (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72842-074-5
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Carolrhoda
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?
For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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