My son chose this book for this year's Global Reading Challenge, and it happened to be a pick for the Diverse Books Club. I decided to count it as my Newbery book for the month - and I'm so glad I did! It's the autobiographical story of author Cece Bell's hearing loss after contracting meningitis when she was a child, and navigating school/her peers with a hearing aid in the 1970s. It reminded me a great deal of Smile, Raina Telgemeier's autobiographical story of resilience - her's after having a childhood filled with jaw surgeries. Both are funny, heartwarming and have great themes for kids. My youngest even read it and we spent a lot of time looking up Cece Bell on Youtube and learning all about the differing abilities of the deaf community.
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