Uhlberg's new picture book offers a lovely entrance into his life as a child. The most moving part of the book lies on each page where the author notes how sound was such an important offering between and to his parents. Both his mother and father were deaf, and the story represents the ongoing communication of the child's experience with sound during one day of his life. His parents pushed him, it seems, to detail sound through words and sign language so they could make sense of it, but as a child, Uhlberg wants to adequately communicate big life things...like the ocean. I appreciate the challenge he must have felt in attempting to interpret his experience of sound for his parents. The wide illustrations help expand the reality of sound as well.
Important and rich, I really feel awkward writing about this text. Living with deaf parents is not one of my experiences, and yet the book does just what I think so many books ought to do: to broaden our views of the world and the people who inhabit it. Thank you, Mr. Uhlberg, for sharing a small story to expand our own.
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