HEAR ME

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.