SHOW ME A SIGN by Ann Clare LeZotte book review

      








Written by Ann Clare LeZotte

Published by Scholastic Press in 2020

ISBN: 978-1338255812

Plot Summary: Mary is a deaf girl who lives in Martha's Vineyard in 1805 with her father who is also deaf and her mother and brother who are hearing. Her brother George loses his life after saving Mary from being run over by a carriage and it tears her family apart. Mary is content in her life and dreams of one day being a teacher. She enjoys the company of Ezra who tells her stories about life as a sailor and he is also deaf. A man named Andrew Noble is visiting the island to study the reason behind many occupants being deaf and in doing so decides to kidnap Mary to study her with his boss Dr. Henry Minot. Mary sees how people who are deaf are treated as though they have a psychiatric issue and she sees all the discrimination that happens in Boston. Mary decides to become a teacher to change the hearts and minds of the American people about deafness. 

Critical Analysis: Mary is a very tough 11 year old girl and she shows it throughout the story in her stubbornness to become what she wants to be when she grows up even though people don't believe in her. Being kidnapped would put anyone through an incredible amount of stress and she weathers it all as she has been dealing with being an outcast for most of her life because of her deafness. This story is written in a tale of two cities type of storytelling as we see Mary in her home of Martha's Vineyard as well as in the big city of Boston. MV is a place where she feels comfortable and seen by those around her while Boston is a place where she feels ostracized. 

This book delves deep into social hierarchies and how Caucasian people sit atop that hierarchy even if they happen to be hard of hearing. Mary's father bucks that trend as he hires African American and Irish farmhands (as being Irish was considered less than back in those times.) Storytelling and writing are two big parts of the story as it's hard to communicate every thought that you have being deaf through sign language so the written word is there to help out. This book will help guide hearing and deaf people to learn what it truly means to be human. 

Review: Kirkus

A young girl living on Martha’s Vineyard in 1805 doesn’t think her community of Deaf and hearing signers is special until the day the hearing world violently intrudes. In present-tense narrator Mary Lambert’s life, it is easy to forget who is Deaf and who is hearing. Everyone she knows uses sign language, and a quarter of her village is Deaf. Mary only learns how different her community is when a young scientist with disdain for the Deaf and no understanding of their culture arrives, seeking to discover the cause of their “infirmity”—using Mary as an experimental subject. LeZotte weaves threads of adventure, family tragedy, community, racism, and hearing people’s negative assumptions about Deaf people into a beautiful and complex whole. Mary overcomes her own ordeal with the support of her community, but in the process she discovers that there is no silver bullet for the problems and prejudices of the world. There is no hollow inspirational content to be found in this tale, even where another author may have fallen into the trap. Though Mary is White of English descent, LeZotte acknowledges the racial tensions among the English, Black, Irish, and Wampanoag residents of Martha’s Vineyard, creating a dynamic that Mary interacts within but cannot fix. Each element of the narrative comes together to create an all-too-rare thing: an excellent book about a Deaf person. A closing note provides further information on Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language and the history of both Martha’s Vineyard and Deaf education.

A vivid depiction of Deaf community along with an exciting plot and beautiful prose make this a must-read. (Historical fiction. 8-14)

Connection: Students can learn more about Martha's Vineyard and why deafness is so prevalent there. 

https://www.britannica.com/science/deafness-on-Marthas-Vineyard

More Books by Ann Clare LeZotte

T4: A Novel ISBN 978-0547046846

Here Comes Julie Jack ISBN 978-1450720021






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