The climax of the story is a wonderful culmination of Cece’s growth to self-acceptance, as well as the acceptance of the kids around her, and I came away from the story wanting everyone in the world to read it.įinal thing: there were a number of things about the artwork of this graphic novel that I really loved. Whole scenes play out in Cece’s imagination, where she pictures herself saying things and dealing with others in a way she doesn’t quite feel confident enough to do in real life. The fruit of these vignettes is a very helpful guide to what helps and what doesn’t when relating to others who are hearing impaired.Ĭertainly one of the things I loved about Cece was her resilience: early on with the help of her phonic ear, which she has to use for school, she reframes her deafness, imagining herself as a superhero with super hearing and calling herself “El Deafo”. Mix that with friends who are overbearing, bossy and boundary transgressors friends who are well-meaning but irritating and friends who are terrific but human and flawed, and you get a sense of the rocky landscape that Cece must traverse in order to connect with her peers.
There are those for whom it is an issue, there are those for whom it is not an issue, and there are those who try to over-compensate for it. Friendship, which is always a rich subject for middle grade fiction, takes on other interesting shades when the children who try to befriend Cece also find themselves contending with Cece’s deafness. Cece’s longing for true companions is highlighted by her extreme loneliness: in certain panels, she’s visually depicted within bubbles. The impact of deafness on Cece’s relationships is a major theme throughout the story-particularly with regards to her friendships. The story follows Cece through the next five years as she tries to learn to live in a world of hearing-abled people who don’t necessarily understand her disability, and how it affects her life and her relationships.
I saw it in the Scholastic Book Club catalogue and decided to get it because it sounded interesting (and Scholastic do a good job of selling books through Book Club at a nice discount).Įl Deafo is the semi-autobiographical story of Cece Bell who, at age four, contracts meningitis and loses most of her hearing. Next on the To Read list: El Deafo by Cece Bell (Amulet Books, 2014).ĭespite it winning a Newbery Honor and an Eisner Award in 2015, I hadn’t heard of this book.
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