As well as being Book Week, it is Hearing Awareness Week in Australia, so it is a good time to go to the library shelves, find and read Christobel Mattingley and Anne Spudvilas' The Race. This wonderful book was Anne Spudvilas' first, and for it she won the Crichton Award for new illustrators. Since then her books have won many awards. in this story, the main character, Greg is desperate to be included at school and to not always be last. He can run very fast, but even comes last in running races. A new teacher arrives at the school and after observing Greg run, she realises that he has difficulty hearing the starting command. When a visual command is used Greg wins the race and his world is changed!
If your library doesn't have this out-of-print book, you might have some of the titles from two series of books which also feature a deaf main character. Isaac Millman has three books about Moses who goes to school with other deaf children. In Moses Goes to a Concert his class goes to an orchestral concert. This book is particularly good as it allows hearing children to see how deaf children can feel the beat of the music and enjoy a concert in the same way that they do. Elizabeth Levy has written a series of books called Invisible Inc, where a group of children which includes a boy who is invisible, Justin who is deaf and others, have adventures, solve mysteries and have fun at school.
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