Seeger, Pete and Jacob, Paul Dubois. The Deaf Musicians. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2006.
The Deaf Musicians is about a piano man named Lee. He is in a band and plays at a jazz club every night, but when his band mates find out that he is losing his hearing, they kick him out of the band. The bandleader says, “Who will listen to a deaf musician?” Lee then starts gong to a school for the deaf and learns sign language. There, he finds other deaf people who have a similar love for music. Lee and two of his new friends start up a band of their own, soon recruiting a sign language interpreter to be their singer. The quartet rehearses on the subway and attracts quite an audience, proving that a lot of people will listen to deaf musicians!
The thing I liked most about this book was that Seeger and Dubois Jacobs did not portray being deaf in a negative way. Instead of focusing on his hearing loss, Lee continues to focus on his passion, which happens to be music. Although he is kicked out of his original band, he never gives up. The focus of the book is not on Lee’s struggles with learning sign language. Instead, it is on the triumph of making new friends and never giving up on your passion.
I enjoyed the different fonts and colors that were used for the musical words throughout the book. They helped to emphasize the importance of music to the main character. Pete Seeger is very knowledgeable about this subject. He participates in a music festival called Clearwater’s Great Hudson River Revival that has sign language interpreters on the stages, and his father was deaf. Overall, I think this is great book to teach people that being deaf does not have to be a hardship and to never give up on your passions and inspirations.
The Deaf Musicians is about a piano man named Lee. He is in a band and plays at a jazz club every night, but when his band mates find out that he is losing his hearing, they kick him out of the band. The bandleader says, “Who will listen to a deaf musician?” Lee then starts gong to a school for the deaf and learns sign language. There, he finds other deaf people who have a similar love for music. Lee and two of his new friends start up a band of their own, soon recruiting a sign language interpreter to be their singer. The quartet rehearses on the subway and attracts quite an audience, proving that a lot of people will listen to deaf musicians!
The thing I liked most about this book was that Seeger and Dubois Jacobs did not portray being deaf in a negative way. Instead of focusing on his hearing loss, Lee continues to focus on his passion, which happens to be music. Although he is kicked out of his original band, he never gives up. The focus of the book is not on Lee’s struggles with learning sign language. Instead, it is on the triumph of making new friends and never giving up on your passion.
I enjoyed the different fonts and colors that were used for the musical words throughout the book. They helped to emphasize the importance of music to the main character. Pete Seeger is very knowledgeable about this subject. He participates in a music festival called Clearwater’s Great Hudson River Revival that has sign language interpreters on the stages, and his father was deaf. Overall, I think this is great book to teach people that being deaf does not have to be a hardship and to never give up on your passions and inspirations.
1 comment:
I read this book last year, and I loved it too - especially the illustrations, which do have a really "jazzy" feel to them.
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