Bell, C. (2014). El Deafo. Abrams.
El Deafo is a graphic novel by Cece Bell. This book is an autobiographical account of the author's childhood living with deafness. As well as being the author, Bell also illustrated the graphic novel. She illustrated her world with everyone as bunny rabbits. Set in the 1970's, Cece is a normal kid who loves playing with her friends and roaming around her vibrant suburban neighborhood. A sudden illness though takes away her hearing and she is left deaf at age 4. She begins to adjust to her new life being deaf with the help of a school for the deaf. She learns how to read lips and how to take nonverbal cues from people. As she becomes more comfortable with her deafness, she is thrusted into a regular elementary school and given a special hearing device that she wears on her chest. Her teachers wear a microphone that accompanies the device and Cece is able to hear their private conversations when they forget to turn it off. Cece gives herself the moniker "El Deafo" as she feels this hearing device is almost like a super power. Cece is desperate to make a true best friend who doesn't care about her deafness. She is extremely self conscious about her device and deafness but as she gets older she becomes more confident in herself and is able to form true friendships.
El Deafo won a Newbery Honor in 2015 as well as the Eisner Award for Best Publication for Kids. Feeling different and struggling with friendships are things all kids grapple, which makes this book universally relatable. The graphic novel format makes this a really fun read and the details she puts into her illustrations makes the characters pop off the page. I appreciated the depth she went into describing how it feels to be deaf and the struggles she endured trying to understand people. I was really eyeopening. I recommend this book to readers ages 8-12.
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