‘Show Me a Sign’ shows competence of deaf people
BENNETT
Modified: 2/2/2021 1:53:40 PM
SHOW ME A SIGN
by Ann Clare LeZotte
Show Me a Sign is set in 1805 on Martha’s Vineyard, where historically an unusually high proportion of the population was deaf; in one community as many as one in four people were deaf from birth. Everyone speaks sign language, whether they are ‘hearing’ or deaf, and the reader quickly gets used to seeing the word ‘signed’ instead of ‘said’.
In the family of the engaging narrator, eleven-year-old Mary Lambert, she and her father are deaf while her mother and brother are hearing. At a time before the principles of heredity were understood, this apparently random distribution of deafness is a mystery which attracts the attention of a young scientist from the mainland, Andrew Noble.