Cesaria Feels the Beat by Denise Rosario Adusei

Cesaria Feels the Beat - 40 pages

Denise Rosario Adusei, Priscila Soares (Illustrator)

Summary (From Goodreads)

Cesaria is going to perform for the seaside Carnival. She skips past the beach barefoot, dressed in her favorite peacock leotard.

But when her dance director tells her she must put on her shoes to go on stage, Cesaria signs, “Peacocks don’t wear shoes!”

You see, Cesaria hears the music through the soles of her feet, but no one seems to understand…

…That is, until all the dancers take off their shoes, and learn to feel the music, just like Cesaria.

Review

A nice story about experiencing the world through another point of view.  The author includes a story in the back about her deaf cousin that inspired her to write this book.  

Deer Run Home by Ann Clare LeZotte

Deer Run Home   by Ann Clare LeZotte  209 pages

Effie and her older sister, Deja, have recently moved into their father’s trailer after an incident at their mom’s house. Daddy communicates with Effie by pointing, stomping on the floor, and making thoughtless jokes. Even if they did understand each other, could she tell the terrible secret she carries when telling feels impossible -- and dangerous? But what if telling is the only way to be seen? This tender, spare, emotionally charged story about the impact of abuse and the power of love explores what it feels like to be an outsider in your own family and to awaken -- through friendship, writing, and kinship with the natural world -- to a new understanding and appreciation of yourself.

I really enjoyed this book! It is written in verse so it was an easy read.  Very sad story about child neglect.  But I am very interested in the deaf community and this book shows how hard it is for them to communicate when there is not an interpreter.  
 

I Hear the Sunspot, v. 1 by Yuki Fumino

I Hear the Sunspot, v. 1 by Yuki Fumino - 200 pages

Kohei has hearing difficulties.  Taichi has money issues.  When they accidentally meet, they find that not only can they help each other but that they're becoming friends.

I liked this first volume.  I'd like to read the next volume if I can find it somewhere.

Never Seduce A Scot by Maya Banks

Never Seduce A Scot by Maya Banks- 372 pages

Eveline Armstrong is fiercely loved and protected by her powerful clan, but outsiders consider her “touched.” Beautiful, fey, with a level, intent gaze, she doesn’t speak. No one, not even her family, knows that she cannot hear. Content with her life of seclusion, Eveline has taught herself to read lips and allows the outside world to view her as daft. But when an arranged marriage into a rival clan makes Graeme Montgomery her husband, Eveline accepts her duty—unprepared for the delights to come. Graeme is a rugged warrior with a voice so deep and powerful that his new bride can hear it, and hands and kisses so tender and skilled that he stirs her deepest passions.

Graeme is intrigued by the mysterious Eveline, whose silent lips are ripe with temptation and whose bright, intelligent eyes can see into his soul. As intimacy deepens, he learns her secret. But when clan rivalries and dark deeds threaten the wife he has only begun to cherish, the Scottish warrior will move heaven and earth to save the woman who has awakened his heart to the beautiful song of a rare and magical love

My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins & Fenway Park by Steve Kluger

My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins & Fenway Park by Steve Kluger - 403 pages

Even though one of the characters is a die-hard Red Sox fan, I really liked this book.  It was fun and magical to read.  It's the story of three friends during their freshman year told through diary entries, instant messaging, emails and memos.  Over the course of that year, one of the friends comes out and gets his first boyfriend, one determines that she wants to be an actress, and one finds a new little brother in a deaf child he befriends at a baseball game.  And then there are the quests in the book -- to build a baseball field at Manzanar, to exonerate ballplayer Buck Weaver of cheating, and to introduce Hucky to his idol Mary Poppins.  A fun book for all teens.