Middle School

Jilly thinks she’s figured out how life works. But when her sister Emma is born Deaf, she realizes how much she still has to learn.
A big fantasy reader, Jilly connects with another fan, Derek, who is a Deaf Black ASL (American Sign Language) user. She goes to Derek for advice but doesn’t always know the best way to ask for it and makes some mistakes along the way. Jilly has to step back to learn to be an ally, a sister, and a friend, understanding that life works in different ways for different people, and that being open to change can make you change in the best possible ways.

The author, Alex Gino, once again give us a story with touchy but crucial subjects.

There is so much going on in this story, I don’t even know how to put it into words. When I read the summary for this story, I thought it would mostly be about Jilly learning how to handle living with a deaf sibling. And it is but there is so much more piled on to this story then I originally thought. Subjects like racism, microaggressions, white privilege, police brutality, etc.

I don’t have any real-life frame of reference towards racism and microaggressions, only things I see on TV shows, movies, and books. I hear and read about other people’s opinions and beliefs so much that I don’t know what my own opinion is. What I know for sure is that Black Lives Matters, People’s Lives Matter, it doesn’t matter what color your skin is, Lives Matter.

Below is a quote from this book that I think speaks volumes:

“Black parents in this country have to talk with their kids about police. But until white parents can talk about what’s happening to Black kids too, nothing is going to change.”

The point being made here is that even though these are uncomfortable subjects, they should be talked about and not ignored.

Below is one of my all-time favorite Frazz comic and it shows that we are ALL people of color:

Kids understand this, why can’t adults?

This weeks’ Weird but True Fact about Sign Language

A high school student invented a glove that translates sign language into words that appear on a screen.