Millneck Book Talk
When I was in college at Stony Brook University, I took American Sign Language, for two years. It was just something that always fascinated me and I thought the language was beautiful.
Many years later, I had the idea to write a book with a young deaf boy as the main lead. That is how FLYING TO THE LIGHT was born. It is about a deaf child who knows a secret so big that everyone in the country is after him. I then began to do school talks about the novel and had the good fortune to be able to sit with students at a few different deaf schools. But, I didn’t want to just go into the school and have an interpreter. I wanted to be able to speak to the students myself. So I started classes at The Sign Language Center in NYC to refresh what I had learned so many years ago.
I did a few talks, some at Millneck Manor and St Joseph’s School for the Deaf. I did have an interpreter at
Me and my wonderful interpreter at St Joseph’s School for the Deaf
both events, but I did try my best to use my skills when I could. Both of those visits were eye opening for me. While in my novel the young boy, named Danny, is deaf and does not speak, I have his entire family using sign language to communicate with him. It didn’t occur to me that a parent would not learn sign language to speak to their child. Unfortunately, I heard from the students that most families DO NOT learn sign language to speak to their deaf children. We spoke about a lot of other things, but this really hit home. The conversations really helped me in writing the sequel called, FLYING TO THE FIRE. I changed some content of that novel specifically because of my conversations with the students at these schools.
FLYING – Young Adult Series
But what is really interesting is now my children are interested in ASL and both took the language for four years in high school. And now my son is continuing his education in Deaf Studies with the hope to either be an ASL Interpreter one day or perhaps work in a Deaf School.
I’ve been written up by so many different deaf websites and I thought it might be nice to list some here so you can learn about them. Please click on each one and it will take you right to the articles.
Sharon Pajka’s Blog – a professor at Gallaudet
able2uk
DeafNetwork
Michael Thal Review
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After I lost my hearing to a virus, the doctor told me I’d be deaf one day, so I took ASL classes at Pierce College. Only my youngest daughter bothered learning. The rest of my family, NO. My dog knows sign better than my brothers. Why don’t parents learn? Laziness and fear. Fear of an unknown culture and the difficulty of learning a new language.
I am so sorry to hear this. There’s this insane number of 85% of families do not learn ASL to communicate with their children. The deaf schools were offering the parents classes for free too. I’m HOH in my left ear and am losing hearing in my right each year due to scarring from ear tube surgeries I had as a kid three times. I can still hear, but man, it’s hard at times. My heart goes out to you.