The author shows us how audism is practiced in most public schools where deaf children are educated. Audism is discrimination against deaf people. It’s expressed in the attitude of hearing people. They don’t try to communicate with the deaf and have the false assumption deaf people can’t do things. Many hearing people consider deafness a tragedy. They reject the use of sign language, expect deaf individuals to rely on their residual hearing or lip-reading. They also assume the Deaf and hard-of-hearing (HOH) are idiots and lower their standards for them in an educational setting.
All of this and more is shown eloquently in The Butterfly Cage where Zemach relates her experience teaching young deaf children in a public elementary school. The woman’s patience is amazing considering the audism and oralism she has to contend with by other teachers, support staff, and administrators.
A tender and perspective-shifting book that offers a rare level of understanding about the subtle and and no-so-subtle layers of internalized oppression and deep feelings and dilemmas of Deaf people, written by former Deaf teacher Rachel Zemach.. This mesmerizing, funny, and disruptive narrative invites you to be a fly on the wall in a Deaf classroom at a hearing school, experiencing the immense frustration, unbridled joy, and indelible humor that arise for Deaf adults and children in a hearing environment.. Rachel struggles with staff, administration, and aides who sabotage her efforts at every turn. The students contend with a principal…
Diane Bittner wants to remove the old playhouse her murdered husband built for their daughter, Brittany. Now in sixth grade, Brittany has outgrown the thing. The new neighbor next door, the noisy one who hammers and saws all day and night, makes Diane’s life miserable, did her an accidental favor by crashing a tree on the rotting playhouse.
Josh Lorenz, a sing dad to twelve-year-old Carly, was the holdout juror in the trial of Will Bittner’s murder trial. Josh empathized with the young defendant believing his story of protecting his mother and a child with a gun—an accident. The murderer was set free making Lorenz Bittner’s enemy #1.
It was Josh’s misjudgment that caused the playhouse’s destruction, and when he shows up to apologize, Diane recognizes him immediately and knows who he really is; or does she?
The Family Next Door, by Jacqueline Diamond, is an enemies-to-lovers romance that will definitely melt hearts. It’s slow go for the parents, but their daughters soon develop a solid friendship and a business where Brittany cooks pastries while Carly takes pictures and publicizes on Social Media.
It takes a while for Diane and Josh to admit their attraction to each other in this first in a Harmony Circle series, about a fictional neighborhood in Brea, California.
As a single dad of two daughters, I definitely could relate to the wonderful plot, characters, and California setting, and looking forward to the other books to be written for this series.
An enemies-to-lovers romance you won’t want to miss! Diane’s new neighbor, a single dad, freed her husband’s killer. How can she make peace with him? Josh was the holdout juror who let her husband’s killer go free. Now he moves next door to Diane... and he and his daughter need her help. A simmering attraction and an attempt to reconcile feuding daughters draws teacher Diane Bittner to Josh Lorenz. But when an old hurt surfaces between them, their girls have to turn the tables and find their own justice of the heart. Can enemies ever become lovers? Welcome to Book…
Dan, a recent widower at 40, is barely holding on a year after his beloved wife’s death. He needs to talk to someone about his inner most feelings, and he can’t share that with his teenage daughter, Lindsay, so his floppy eared beagle mix, Anni, takes on the job. Unfortunately, one winter day, while Lindsay grabs the mail, Anni wanders off a bit and is abducted by two nasty men.
Across town, Andrea Keller, the manager of a property development firm, discovers a dog in one of her buildings that doesn’t permit pets. Andrea checks out the problem and discovers an abused dog in that apartment and rescues the animal from the “frat boys”—middle aged men who have never grown up.
Anni has a very positive affect on Andrea. As the months pass the two become inseparable. But Dan and Lindsay spend all their free time searching for their missing pet and get some hopeful leads.
Beware!! Hello Love is a real tearjerker. I related to Dan’s situation too closely. I too lost my wife to disease and depended on my dog to help me through the hard emotional times. And the pain Andrea goes through after her divorce is realistically portrayed.
"An enchanting, impossible-to-put-down novel about big hearts and second chances." --Claire Cook, USA Today bestselling author of Must Love Dogs. A year after the death of his wife, Christine, Dan is barely holding on. But one thing gets him through the long, lonely nights and that is his cherished dog, Anni. When she is stolen from his front yard, Dan and his daughter, Lindsay, are devastated. Meanwhile in another part of town, Andrea Keller is recovering from the heartbreak of a messy divorce. After she rescues a defenseless dog from an abusive tenant, her life changes in ways she never…
“The Lip Reader” tells the story of Zhila Shirazi, an Iranian Jew who, at the age of three, loses hearing in both of her ears as a result of meningitis. Readers soon learn that for Zhila and millions of others worldwide, deafness is often treated as a miserable liability. “In my country of Iran, a disability is a curse,” Zhila says early in the novel. She adds, “People with disabilities in mid-twentieth century Iran were considered tragic and pitiful. Those afflicted were seen as unfit or even feeble-minded and incapable of contributing to society. Their worth was only valued as entertainment in a circus sideshow or as objects of scorn. Many disabled individuals were forced to undergo sterilization so as not to pass disabling genes to their offspring.”
Zhila struggles with deafness her whole life, but always strives to make peace with her disability. The book’s themes of escaping the metaphoric prison of society’s harsh confines, as well as peace with oneself as the ultimate emblem of freedom, is especially inspiring during Passover.
Thal writes in the first person as Zhila, an impressive feat given that, as an Ashkenazi man, he manages to capture the voice of an Iranian Jewish woman with nuance and authenticity. But this achievement is rooted in experience: In real life, Zhila Shirazi (a fictional name) was Thal’s beloved partner of 16 years, a Tehran-born Jewish woman named Jila whom he met in 1999. In 2010, Jila was diagnosed with colon cancer. She passed away in 2015 at age 65, leaving Thal broken with heartache.
