Walking my five year old home from school today, he gasped, stopped and pointed when he saw the word HELLO written in the concrete. We went over the letters to spell out the word, and I thought - not unreasonably - that he was going to ask me how someone had carved it there. Instead, he exclaimed, “That must’ve been written by someone who couldn’t hear! Like the boy in the story!”
The story in question is a gorgeous picture book he was recently given for his birthday: Boy, by Phil Cummings and Shane Devries. The titular protagonist is deaf, and so communicates with sign language - and also, at a key point in the story, by writing on the ground with a sword. We’ve only read it twice, but it’s made a definite impression on my son, and I was reminded all over again of how important representation in kids’ books is, not only so that every child can see themselves as visible and important, but so that all children can recognise human diversity.
As a hearing person, I can’t say how members of the Deaf community might feel about Boy, but I do know that reading it has positively expanded my son’s perception of the world and the people in it, and as such, I think it’s a very wonderful story.
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