Amelia Lends a Hand

Moss, Marissa. Amelia Lends a Hand. Middleton, Wisconsin: Pleasant Company Publications, 2002.

This book is about a young girl, Amelia’s, attempt to befriend her neighbor. She struggles to start hanging out with him because he ignores her request to come over and play with him. She soon finds out that he was in fact not ignoring her but couldn’t hear her because he is deaf. Throughout the entire book the reader goes through the process of how Amelia tries to better their communication by her wanting to learn sign language as well as teaching him through what things meant comparison of sound and taste. This book was written in a very interesting way that many young readers can relate to. Marissa Moss writes the book in the format of note taking and uses colorful and detailed illustrations to support the text.

This book was very informative for both the deaf community as well as the hearing community. This is very important to be knowledgeable in because there are deaf individuals that people encounter in society everyday. If we don’t know how to communicate with those types of people then we wouldn’t be able to know when someone needs directions or to say something important etc. Being able to communicate with these different people will make them and society and better and safer place. The colorful illustrations are enough to keep a reader engaged in the story. Although the story is written veered toward a younger age level I feel the story was written in a way that was straight to the point and easy for young readers to relate to.