Fantastic story about a group of teens making their way through high school. In their case, it’s River Valley School for the Deaf, and unbeknownst to them changes are afoot.
Charlie is new to the school and has only a beginner’s grasp of sign language because her parents operated on the hope that her cochlear implant would bring the promised hearing that the doctors preached.
For hearing readers, the novel is more than revelatory. In fact the author’s note has quite a list of schools for the deaf that have closed over the last decade and throughout the book are references to how the Deaf community is forced to struggle.
Charlie is assigned to Austin, the school’s undisputed king of the school. Austin comes from a long line of deaf family members. He’s the opposite of Charlie when it comes to signing and he lives almost exclusively in the Deaf community. Austin’s world goes wonky when his parents have an unexpected pregnancy and the baby is born hearing.
February is the school principal and she assigned Charlie and Austin as buddies in the hopes that they’d teach each other new things. Feb’s parents were deaf and she is a champion for the kids and the school, but so many things are out of her control.
If you liked the film CODA and the tv series Wednesday, then this novel set at a boarding school for deaf students is up your alley. It’s charming and has all sorts of deviant behaviour. I learned a lot about sign language, disability and civil rights, and the continued injustice that the Deaf community faces.
True Biz by Sarah Nović, perhaps ironically, is an enjoyable listen.