Status
Available
Publication
Yearling (2019), 304 pages
Library's review
ADeaf girl won’t give up her quest to connect with a lonely whale.
Like many Deaf children, 12-year-old Iris has hearing parents, attends school with an interpreter, and has difficulty communicating with her classmates (especially the girl who believes her own invented gibberish is ASL). She had a
Iris’ adventures will engross readers, though Deaf and hearing audiences will likely experience them differently. (Fiction. 8-14)
-Kirkus Review
Like many Deaf children, 12-year-old Iris has hearing parents, attends school with an interpreter, and has difficulty communicating with her classmates (especially the girl who believes her own invented gibberish is ASL). She had a
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close relationship with her Deaf grandparents, but her grandmother has withdrawn after her husband’s death, and Iris’ mom, a child of Deaf adults, has her own anxieties around her daughter’s need for Deaf community. The white girl’s troubles contrast with her black friend Wendell’s, whose hearing family is invested in Deaf language and culture. When Iris learns about Blue 55, a whale who sings at a frequency unintelligible to other whales, she feels an immediate kinship and concocts a plan to create a song Blue 55 can hear. A quick-moving, suspenseful plot takes her from junkyards to a cruise ship as she gains the confidence to stand up for herself and take control of her life. Written by a sign-language interpreter, this story incorporates important elements of Deaf culture and the expansiveness and richness of ASL but makes concessions to hearing readers in its recording of conversations. (ASL dialogue is appropriately rendered in fluent English.) The final suspenseful scenes strain credulity, and lengthy descriptions of frequencies and radio repair drag occasionally, but this remains a satisfying, energetic read.Iris’ adventures will engross readers, though Deaf and hearing audiences will likely experience them differently. (Fiction. 8-14)
-Kirkus Review
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Awards
Massachusetts Children's Book Award (Nominee — 2021)
Sequoyah Book Award (Nominee — Children's — 2021)
Georgia Children's Book Award (Finalist — 2021)
Kentucky Bluegrass Award (Nominee — Grades 3-5 — 2021)
Charlie May Simon Children's Book Award (Nominee — 2022)
Pacific Northwest Library Association Young Reader's Choice Award (Nominee — Junior — 2022)
William Allen White Children's Book Award (Nominee — Grades 6-8 — 2022)
Vermont Golden Dome Book Award (Nominee — 2021)
Iowa Teen Award (Nominee — 2022)
Bluestem Award (Nominee — 2023)
Mark Twain Readers Award (Nominee — 2022)
Sunshine State Young Reader's Award (Nominee — Grades 6-8 — 2021)
Oregon Reader's Choice Award (Nominee — 2022)
NCSLMA Battle of the Books (Middle School — 2022)
Virginia Readers' Choice (Nominee — Elementary — 2021)
Black-Eyed Susan Book Award (Nominee — Grades 4-6 — 2021)
Odyssey Award (Honor — 2020)
Colorado Children's Book Award (Nominee — 2022)
Horace Mann Upstanders Award (Winner — 2020)
Volunteer State Book Award (Nominee — Middle School — 2021)
Keystone to Reading Book Award (Winner — 2021)
Maud Hart Lovelace Award (Nominee — 2023)
Rhode Island Middle School Book Award (Nominee — 2022)
Schneider Family Book Award (Winner — Middle Grades — 2020)
Kansas NEA Reading Circle Recommended Book (Intermediate — 2020)
Nerdy Book Award (Middle Grade Fiction — 2019)
Los Angeles Public Library Best of the Year (Children's Books — 2019)
Teacher Favorites Award (2020)
Tome Society It List (2021)
Great Texas Mosquito List (2022)
El día de los niños / El día de los libros (3-5 — 2020)
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Kids (Fiction for Older Readers — 2019)
Horned Toad Tales (2021)
Language
Original language
English
ISBN
1524770264 / 9781524770266