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INTERMEDIATE FICTION
LeZotte, Ann Clare

Deer Run Home: A Novel in Verse

224 pp. | Scholastic | September, 2024 | Trade ISBN 9781339021904 $18.99 | Ebook ISBN 9781546109808 $18.99
(2) 4-6 Having written several works of historical fiction with d/Deaf characters, LeZotte (Show Me a Sign, rev. 9/20, and sequels) now turns to a setting in which the issues that compromise the mental and physical well-being of d/Deaf children are contemporary and immediate. This first-person, present-tense verse novel accelerates suspensefully in a series of vignettes, events, and reflections. Effie lives with her older sister and alcoholic father, having been cast out of her mother and stepfather's house. None of her family has learned American Sign Language, the only language fully accessible for her; it's left to her school interpreter, Miss Kathy, to provide deep refreshment to Effie's love and communication-thirsty soul. In brief, spare entries, Effie conveys her fears and isolation, enjoys a new friendship with a classmate with cerebral palsy, and finally finds a way to tell Miss Kathy about her stepfather's sexual predation. Miss Kathy applies for custody, which is granted after a tense three-day hearing; Effie's father is found to be an unfit guardian because he refuses to learn ASL. (LeZotte reports in her author's note that she based her plot on a similar, historic case in the d/Deaf community, and that three out of four hearing parents do not learn to sign with their deaf children.) LeZotte packs a great deal into this very quick work, and while the complexity of anguish, isolation, language trauma, and sexual abuse Effie suffers could merit fuller expression, the story can pique interest and raise awareness of what it is like to grow up d/Deaf in a non-signing family, using ASL interpreters, or confronting false assumptions about disability.
Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2024

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