Special Collections

Alandra's Lilacs

When, in 1968, 19-year-old Tressa Bowers took her baby daughter to an expert on deaf children, he pronounced that Alandra was "stone deaf," she most likely would never be able to talk, and she probably would not get much of an education because of her communication limitations. Tressa refused to accept this stark assessment of Alandra's prospects. Instead, she began the arduous process of starting her daughter's education. Economic need forced Tressa to move several times, and as a result, she and Alandra experienced a variety of learning environments: a pure oralist approach, which discouraged signing; Total Communication, in which the teachers spoke and signed simultaneously; a residential school for deaf children, where Signed English was employed; and a mainstream public school that relied upon interpreters. Changes at home added more demands, from Tressa's divorce to her remarriage, her long work hours, and the ongoing challenge of complete communication within their family. Through it all, Tressa and Alandra never lost sight of their love for each other, and their affection rippled through the entire family. Today, Tressa can triumphantly point to her confident, educated daughter and also speak with pride of her wonderful relationship with her deaf grandchildren. Alandra's Lilacs is a marvelous story about the resiliency and achievements of determined, loving people no matter what their circumstances might be.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Anything But Silent

This book is a compilation of the most thought-provoking articles by deaf writer Mark Drolsbaugh. With a blend of humor and insight Drolsbaugh tackles some of the most profound topics in deafness deafhearing relationships the rift between American Sign Language and English the hidden world of the hard of hearing oppression in politics and education idiosyncrasies of the deaf and hearing and may others. Anything But Silent offers a deaf perspective that will bring knowing smiles to those familiar with the deaf community and enlightenment to those who are new to it.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Apple Is My Sign

A 10-year-old boy returns to his parents' apple farm for the holidays after his first term at a school for the deaf in Philadelphia.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Assessing Literacy in Deaf Individuals

Humans' development of literacy has been a recent focus of intense research from the reading, cognitive, and neuroscience fields. But for individuals who are deaf--who rely greatly on their visual skills for language and learning--the findings don't necessarily apply, leaving theoretical and practical gaps in approaches to their education.

Assessing Literacy in Deaf Individuals: Neurocognitive Measurement and Predictors narrows these gaps by introducing the VL2 Toolkit, a comprehensive test battery for assessing the academic skills and cognitive functioning of deaf persons who use sign language. Skills measured include executive functioning, memory, reading, visuospatial ability, writing fluency, math, and expressive and receptive language. Comprehensive data are provided for each, with discussion of validity and reliability issues as well as ethical and legal questions involved in the study. And background chapters explain how the Toolkit was compiled, describing the procedures of the study, its rationale, and salient characteristics of its participants. This notable book:
Describes each Toolkit instrument and the psychometric properties it measures.
Presents detailed findings on test measures and relationships between skills.
Discusses issues and challenges relating to visual representations of English, including fingerspelling and lipreading.
Features a factor analysis of the Toolkit measures to identify underlying cognitive structures in deaf learners.
Reviews trends in American Sign Language assessment.
Assessing Literacy in Deaf Individuals is an essential reference for researchers, graduate students, clinicians, and other professionals working in the field of deafness and deaf education across in such areas as clinical child and school psychology, audiology, and linguistics.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Belonging

Gustie Blaine had it all--she was a cheerleader and an honor-roll student, she even got along with her parents--until the summer of her fifteenth year. That summer she got meningitis. It started with a headache, but in the end the illness left her deaf. Belonging is the story of how Gustie's life changed after that illness.

Gustie spent the first months of her recovery with hearing that yo-yoed. One day she could hear just about everything people said; the next, she understood almost nothing. She tried hearing aids, but they only made the garbled sounds louder, not clearer.

By the following winter her hearing was completely gone. Her best friend and confidante, Sara, suddenly had no time for her. School became a nightmare. She couldn't understand most of what was said in her classes. It was nearly impossible to keep up.

Gustie lived in a hearing world, and she felt cut off from everything and everyone. Even her parents. The old ease between them was now strained; accepting her hearing loss was hard. Traditions that the family had taken for granted, like sitting around the Christmas tree and listening to carols, were now impossible.

Gradually though, Gustie began to find new friends, like Lenore, a classmate who wasn't afraid of Gustie's deafness. She met Mr. Tate, a special education teacher, who showed her she still had choices, even in finding a way to communicate. And most importantly, she met Jack. He thought of her deafness as "part of the whole package."

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Blind Side

DEAD FROGS CAN'T JUMP On the eve of Calaveras County's annual frog-jumping contest, is the suspicious death of Buford, the county's prizewinning amphibian, sabotage or murder? Feisty local newspaper publisher Connor Westphal ponders the irony of this untimely tragedy-- made suddenly more alarming when poor Buford's handler, Dakota Webster, is found floating in Critter's Creek surrounded by dozens more dead frogs. Connor is more than curious when the frog of a rival competitor is discovered stuffed in the dead man's mouth, and worried when the prime suspect is Jeremiah "Miah" Mercer, one of her closest friends. Determined to clear Miah's name, Connor navigates a sordid mess of toxic waste, embezzlement, prescription drug scams and cold-blooded murder ... taking a dangerous leap of her own in a race to catch a killer.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Burn Down the Ground

In this powerful, affecting, and unflinching memoir, a daughter looks back on her unconventional childhood with deaf parents in rural Texas while trying to reconcile it to her present life--one in which her father is serving a twenty-year sentence in a maximum-security prison.

As a child, Kambri Crews wished that she'd been born deaf so that she, too, could fully belong to the tight-knit Deaf community that embraced her parents. Her beautiful mother was a saint who would swiftly correct anyone's notion that deaf equaled dumb. Her handsome father, on the other hand, was more likely to be found hanging out with the sinners. Strong, gregarious, and hardworking, he managed to turn a wild plot of land into a family homestead complete with running water and electricity. To Kambri, he was Daniel Boone, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ben Franklin, and Elvis Presley all rolled into one. But if Kambri's dad was Superman, then the hearing world was his kryptonite. The isolation that accompanied his deafness unlocked a fierce temper--a rage that a teenage Kambri witnessed when he attacked her mother, and that culminated fourteen years later in his conviction for another violent crime.

With a smart mix of brutal honesty and blunt humor, Kambri Crews explores her complicated bond with her father--which begins with adoration, moves to fear, and finally arrives at understanding--as she tries to forge a new connection between them while he lives behind bars. Burn Down the Ground is a brilliant portrait of living in two worlds--one hearing, the other deaf; one under the laid-back Texas sun, the other within the energetic pulse of New York City; one mired in violence, the other rife with possibility--and heralds the arrival of a captivating new voice.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Carry Me Like Water

"Sentimental and ferocious, upsetting and tender, firmly magic-realist yet utterly modern. . . Sáenz is a writer with greatness in him." —San Diego Union TribuneWith Carry Me Like Water, Benjamin Alire Sáenz unfolds a beautiful story about hope and forgiveness, unexpected reunions, an expanded definition of family, and, ultimately, what happens when the disparate worlds of pain and privilege collide.Diego, a deaf-mute, is barely surviving on the border in El Paso, Texas. Diego's sister, Helen, who lives with her husband in the posh suburbs of San Francisco, long ago abandoned both her brother and her El Paso roots. Helen's best friend, Lizzie, a nurse in an AIDS ward, begins to uncover her own buried past after a mystical encounter with a patient.This immensely moving novel confronts divisions of race, gender, and class, fusing together the stories of people who come to recognize one another from former lives they didn't know existed— or that they tried to forget. 

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Changes for Julie

[Back Cover] Julie is in fifth grade-and in trouble! She was only helping her friend Joy, who is deaf, but her teacher doesn't care. After serving time in detention, Julie sets out to change the system. To do that, she'll have to win the election for student body president, running against the most popular boy in the school. As the election heats up, Julie tries to get the kids to listen to her ideas. When she realizes that the other kids don't like Joy, her choice for vice president, she considers dropping out of the race. But the last thing she wants is to hurt Joy's feelings-or lose her as a friend.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Chelsea

Chelsea: The Story of a Signal Dog is the heartwarming, humorous, inspirational love story of a young deaf couple and the beautiful Belgian sheepdog who acts as their "ears" When Paul and Anne Ogden felt they needed a better link to the hearing world, they turned to Canine Companions for independence, a unique organization that trains dogs to help deaf and disabled persons live more successfully and creatively with their special needs. ...

Once the Ogdens return home with Chelsea, the story unfolds in lively detail. Life in a deaf family with an "almost human" dog seems to be a constant series of adventures and misadventures, and as Chelsea matures into a proud professional, readers will be utterly captivated by her charm. In addition to being a heartfelt animal story, the book shows us life in the deaf world ...

Poignant, touching, and joyful, Chelsea reveals deeper truths about the way we communicate or fail to communicate with one another, while conveying the spirit of triumph that once again proves that dogs are man's (and woman's) best friend. Chelsea is a love story guaranteed to delight.

Paul W. Ogden, professor of deaf education at California State University at Fresno, is the coauthor of The Silent Garden: Understanding the Hearing-Impaired Child. He lives with his wife, Anne Keegan Ogden, R.N., and their signal dog, Chelsea. When Paul is not teaching, writing, or beachcombing, he is collecting stories from deaf people for an anthology.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Child of Silence

1st in mystery series. Bo Bradley, child abuse investigator with manic-depression rescues deaf child. Light, fast read, but excellent depiction of what's now called bi-polar disorder.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Christmas Miracles

At Christmas, our hearts are touched by reports of wondrous occurrences that make us stop, reflect, and hope. This luminous book shares true accounts of Christmas miracles-- inspiring events that happened to real people at Christmas time, including:

A Christmas Mystery: A deaf boy's generosity is miraculously rewarded

First Christmas: Newlyweds take part in the local Christmas pageant -- and receive a surprising lesson in timeless love

My Christmas Angel: A pro baseball player visits a children's ward to cheer the patients, and is himself transformed

A Heart for Christmas: A series of coincidences brings new life to a little girl

The Stranger: A gentle, mysterious Christmas Eve visitor awes a family

Christmas Saved My Mother: A rabbi tells how his mother, fleeing the Holocaust, was spared on Christmas Eve

George Misses a Shift: Sudden car trouble on Christmas night saves a couple's life... and more.

Albert Einstein said, "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is." If you believe in miracles -- or want to -- let Christmas Miracles light the candle of hope in your heart this year.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

The Cloak of Dreams

Intriguing fairy tales by the librettist of Béla Bartók’s opera Bluebeard’s CastleA man is changed into a flea and must bring his future parents together in order to become human again. A woman convinces a river god to cure her sick son, but the remedy has mixed consequences. A young man must choose whether to be close to his wife's soul or body. And two deaf mutes transcend their physical existence in the garden of dreams. Strange and fantastical, these fairy tales of Béla Balázs (1884-1949), Hungarian writer, film critic, and famous librettist of Bluebeard's Castle, reflect his profound interest in friendship, alienation, and Taoist philosophy. Translated and introduced by Jack Zipes, one of the world's leading authorities on fairy tales, The Cloak of Dreams brings together sixteen of Balázs's unique and haunting stories.Written in 1921, these fairy tales were originally published with twenty images drawn in the Chinese style by painter Mariette Lydis, and this new edition includes a selection of Lydis's brilliant illustrations. Together, the tales and pictures accentuate the motifs and themes that run throughout Balázs's work: wandering protagonists, mysterious woods and mountains, solitude, and magical transformation. His fairy tales express our deepest desires and the hope that, even in the midst of tragedy, we can transcend our difficulties and forge our own destinies.Unusual, wondrous fairy tales that examine the world's cruelties and twists of fate, The Cloak of Dreams will entertain, startle, and intrigue.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Cosmic Healing

With the onset of sudden profound deafness at the age of 29, Barbara Brodsky set out on a quest to understand the nature of illness and healing, examining the interrelationship of mind and body and our capacity to transcend limitation. Asking the questions What is healing? Who and what heals? Why do some people heal while others do not? she discusses karma and free will, our habit of identifying with a limited sense of self, and our potential for greater healing.

A longtime Buddhist practitioner who began meditation in the '60s, Brodsky discovered a new path on her healing journey when she began channeling the spirit Aaron in 1989. Based on three decades of meticulously kept journals, Cosmic Healing weaves together Brodsky's Buddhist teachings, channeled material from Aaron, exercises for the reader, and an account of her experiences with the healer known as John of God (João Teixeira de Faria) at his teaching center, Casa de Dom Inácio, in Brazil. While Cosmic Healing is channeled in part and has deep roots in traditional dharma, it is at heart a universal story of human growth and discovery. Old beliefs limit us every day. But as Brodsky discovered and teaches, we can learn to recognize such limiting beliefs, transcend them, and live a deeper truth.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Crocodile Meatloaf

As she becomes friends with Rachel, a deaf girl who has joined her sixth-grade class, Alex begins to feel that God has given her a mission to protect Rachel from the boy who is tormenting her.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Crossed Wires

Crossed Wires, a highly original mystery novel, introduces readers to an unusual heroine, who is being stalked by a particularly chilling serial killer. Finley is tenacious, sympathetic, and attractive. What then makes her an unusual sleuth? Finley is deaf. And Finley and the murderer who hunts her inhabit, literally, a new world -almost a new dimension. They live an important part of their lives within the electronic bulletin boards accessed by their personal computers.

Finley, whose hearing impairment makes her vulnerable, has learned to live and rely upon faceless friends, especially Tracy and Jane, she knows only through her modem. She works as a researcher at CIAC, the National Crime Information and Analysis Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey, a very sophisticated clearing house for law enforcement agencies. Even without romance, life is pretty good for Finley, with a challenging job as an electronic detective and an apparently reliable set of friends, until one beautiful fall morning the ebullient Tracy is murdered - her throat slashed and her computer's memory wiped clean.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Crying Hands

Exposes the active collusion with the Nazis of various physicians, administrators, and teachers of the deaf who embraced the Third Reich's eugenics policies. Documents the collusion of deaf leaders, who tried to incorporate all independent deaf groups into one Nazi organization while expelling deaf Jews, and traces resistance against the Third Reich by deaf Germans. Includes personal accounts of some of the 1,215 deaf victims of enforced sterilization, demonstrating the lasting physical and emotional pain of Nazi violations. The author is a retired professor and teacher of deaf students.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

The Cry of the Gull

A memoir by a deaf, French actress who starred in the French production of Children of a Lesser God.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Cultural and Language Diversity and the Deaf Experience

This edited volume provides a comprehensive analysis of deaf people as a culturally and linguistically distinct minority group within American society. Many educators, linguists, and researchers now favor this position, as opposed to that which states that a deaf person simply has an audiological disability. Contributors to this book include members of the deaf community, as well as prominent deaf and hearing educators and researchers. The text contains three sections, covering research on bilingualism and biculturalism, the impact of cultural and language diversity on the deaf experience, and first-hand accounts from deaf community members that highlight the emotional impact of living in the deaf and hearing worlds.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Dad, Jackie, and Me

Jackie Robinson is the new first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers--and the first black player in Major League Baseball. A young boy shares the excitement of Robinson's rookie season with his deaf father.

Winner of the Schneider Family Book Award

Date Added: 03/08/2018

The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin

Being a hefty, deaf newcomer almost makes Will Halpin the least popular guy at Coaler High. But when he befriends the only guy less popular than him, the dork-namic duo has the smarts and guts to figure out who knocked off the star quarterback. Will can't hear what's going on, but he's a great observer. So, who did it? And why does that guy talk to his fingers? And will the beautiful girl ever notice him? (Okay, so Will's interested in more than just murder . . . )

Those who prefer their heroes to be not-so-usual and with a side of wiseguy will gobble up this witty, geeks-rule debut.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Dead Body Language

Thirty-seven year old journalist, Connor Westphal, has relocated from San Francisco to Flat Skunk, a mining-turned-tourist town in the foothills of the Sierras, to start up her own weekly paper. Suddenly, dead bodies begin turning up in the most unusual places, setting Connor on a hunt for a killer. You might say Connor has a sixth sense when it comes to investigating...but she only has four of the usual five senses. Connor Westphal is deaf. But being hearing impaired doesn't stop Connor from pursuing the murderer. Without sound to distract her, she attends to subtleties that others overlook and ultimately unravels the mystery.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Deaf Again

Drolsbaugh was born to deaf parents, yet had normal hearing that became a progressive hearing loss. Follow his trip through hearing, hard of hearing, and deaf identity. Many provocative ideas and facts are brought forward for discussion.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Deaf American Poetry

“The Deaf poet is no oxymoron,” declares editor John Lee Clark in his introduction to Deaf American Poetry: An Anthology. The 95 poems by 35 Deaf American poets in this volume more than confirm his point. From James Nack’s early metered narrative poem “The Minstrel Boy” to the free association of Kristi Merriweather’s contemporary “It Was His Movin’ Hands Be Tellin’ Me,” these Deaf poets display mastery of all forms prevalent during the past two centuries. Beyond that, E. Lynn Jacobowitz’s “In Memoriam: Stephen Michael Ryan” exemplifies a form unique to Deaf American poets, the transliteration of verse originally created in American Sign Language.

This anthology showcases for the first time the best works of Deaf poets throughout the nation’s history — John R. Burnet, Laura C. Redden, George M. Teegarden, Agatha Tiegel Hanson, Loy E. Golladay, Robert F. Panara, Mervin D. Garretson, Clayton Valli, Willy Conley, Raymond Luczak, Christopher Jon Heuer, Pamela Wright-Meinhardt, and many others. Each of their poems reflects the sensibilities of their times, and the progression of their work marks the changes that deaf Americans have witnessed through the years. In “The Mute’s Lament,” John Carlin mourns the wonderful things that he cannot hear, and looks forward to heaven where “replete with purest joys/My ears shall be unsealed, and I shall hear.” In sharp contrast, Mary Toles Peet, who benefitted from being taught by Deaf teachers, wrote “Thoughts on Music” with an entirely different attitude. She concludes her account of the purported beauty of music with the realization that “the music of my inward ear/Brings joy far more intense.”

Clark tracks these subtle shifts in awareness through telling, brief biographies of each poet. By doing so, he reveals in Deaf American Poetry how “the work of Deaf poets serves as a prism through which Deaf people can know themselves better and through which the rest of the world can see life in a new light.”

Date Added: 01/22/2019

Deaf And Hearing Siblings In Conversation

This is the first book to consider both deaf and hearing perspectives on the dynamics of adult sibling relationships. Deaf and hearing authors Berkowitz and Jonas conducted interviews with 22 adult siblings, using ASL and spoken English, to access their intimate thoughts. A major feature of the book is its analysis of how isolation impacts deaf-hearing sibling relationships. The book documents the 150 year history of societal attitudes embedded in sibling bonds and identifies how the siblings' lives were affected by the communication choices their parents made. The authors weave information throughout the text to reveal attitudes toward American Sign Language and the various roles deaf and hearing siblings take on as monitors, facilitators, signing-siblings and sibling-interpreters, all of which impact lifelong bonds. Included: questions for guided discussion, extensive bibliography, and other features.

Date Added: 03/08/2018