Singing Hands tells the story of a troubled girl, the hearing child of deaf parents, the middle of three hearing daughters. Her father has dedicated his life to the Deaf community and has no time for his family. The mother is busy running the household and working in her husband's ministry. So Gussie acts out in progressively worse behavior, starting with humming in church, then playing pranks, cussing, stealing, lying ...
The writing style is directed at young teens, and as an adult I did not find it as enjoyable as I have other YA books. I also found it very, very odd that Gussie, who was born into a deaf household and grows up in a signing deaf community, admits she doesn't sign fluently and can't keep up when deaf people sign to each other. It should be her first language. It is brought up repeatedly in the book and I had a hard time accepting it.
The writing style is directed at young teens, and as an adult I did not find it as enjoyable as I have other YA books. I also found it very, very odd that Gussie, who was born into a deaf household and grows up in a signing deaf community, admits she doesn't sign fluently and can't keep up when deaf people sign to each other. It should be her first language. It is brought up repeatedly in the book and I had a hard time accepting it.
