STRONG DEAF

Imagine writing a book with two main characters who cannot speak.  Sign language is their language of communication.  The older sister is deaf; the younger sister is not.

STRONG DEAF by Lynn McElfresh gives the reader a realistic – and often painful – look into two worlds: growing up deaf and growing up hearing in a family in which parents, aunts, uncles and cousins are deaf.  The Deaf Community is a strong community. But how does one “fit in” as the sister who can hear?

Lynn McElfresh presents many difficult conflicts that are part of the thorny relationship between these two sisters, Jade and Marla.  Like all siblings, each sister knows how to “push the buttons” of their sibling.  These two sisters struggle to find their own place within their family, their school and community, and most important, their relationship with each other.

In STRONG DEAF the author has captured the cadence, grammar and inflection of sisters speaking in sign.  The politics of leadership at Gallaudet University, the only university exclusively for students who are deaf, are woven seamlessly through the story.

Told in two voices and “read” as if one is “hearing” signed communication, the book offers a glimpse into a very different world.