In graphic memoir form, Russo depicts her childhood in Queens, New York, from 1957–1967. “When I was a little girl, I took Catholicism very seriously…Despite the fact that my relatives spoke Yiddish, ate herring, and drank seltzer, it never occurred to me that I might actually be Jewish.”
In this sequel to Show Me a Sign (rev. 9/20), deaf, signing Mary, now fourteen, once again leaves her home on Martha’s Vineyard where being deaf and signing is part of the established culture for Boston and environs, a world in which deafness is considered monstrous or, at best, pitiable.
A child is the first in the house to wake up and ponders what to make of the day: “Maybe I will do whatever I want to do.” In a nod to choose-your-own-adventure types of books, and perhaps even David Macaulay’s classic Black and White (1990), subsequent spreads include four separate vignettes, representing the child’s options and rendered via Bagley’s (Daisy, rev. 4/21) expressive, detailed watercolors with pencil.