SHOW ME A SIGN
by Ann Clare LeZotte
Show Me a Sign is set in 1805 on Martha’s Vineyard, where historically an unusually high proportion of the population was deaf; in one community as many as one in four people were deaf from birth. Everyone speaks sign language, whether they are ‘hearing’ or deaf, and the reader quickly gets used to seeing the word ‘signed’ instead of ‘said’.
In the family of the engaging narrator, eleven-year-old Mary Lambert, she and her father are deaf while her mother and brother are hearing. At a time before the principles of heredity were understood, this apparently random distribution of deafness is a mystery which attracts the attention of a young scientist from the mainland, Andrew Noble.
At first Mary is excited by the idea of a real scientist visiting her enclosed community, and she fantasizes about becoming his assistant. However, it soon becomes clear that Andrew is hiding a sinister agenda behind the interviews he conducts for his research.
Through Andrew, Mary learns the shocking fact that deaf people, whom she and her community consider perfectly normal, are treated as incompetent outcasts on the mainland. This is a view that Andrew seems to share, even as he engages in polite conversation – through an interpreter of sign language – with the highly competent deaf people he encounters.
Andrew’s attitude soon alienates everyone, including Mary, and she is relieved when he finally prepares to leave the island, only to discover that his research is now focused on her, and will put her in real danger.
In parallel with the developing personal peril that Mary faces, we learn about the continuing land-ownership conflicts between the descendants of the first English settlers on Martha’s Vineyard and the native Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah. The settler population also disapproves of the fact that women of the tribe are free to marry former slaves, or freedmen.
These conflicts affect friends of Mary’s family on both sides. Mary’s father is liberal-minded and treats his freedman laborer, Thomas, with respect. Mary herself tries to maintain a friendship with Thomas’s daughter, Sally, despite the disapproval of her white friend and neighbor Nancy, whose family employs Sally and her Wampanoag mother. In the aftermath of a tragedy in Mary’s family, it’s the mixed-race Sally who steps in to help her.
The theme of discrimination appears in different forms, whether it is the attitude of white people towards the Wampanoags and the freedman, or the way deaf people are regarded on the mainland. Show Me a Sign draws our attention to these themes, but not at the expense of the plot, or the varied and engaging characters. These include Mary’s somewhat disreputable neighbor, the sailor Ezrah Brewer, who fascinates her with his tall tales, and later plays a major part in her own story.
Apart from the accelerating excitement of the plot, the whole book is a revelation for hearing readers. We see, through the characters’ conversations, that signing is every bit as sophisticated as spoken language and, as a means of conveying feelings, perhaps even more so. This is made all the more authentic and convincing by the fact that author Ann Clare LeZotte is deaf herself.
In several fascinating notes at the end of the book, we learn that the now-defunct Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL) was a recognized language that influenced the development of ASL – modern American Sign Language.
Show Me a Sign will appeal to 5th graders and above (including adults) as an exciting and unusual story, with a heroine whose endurance and resourcefulness have the reader cheering her all the way. But it is also a demonstration of the richness and normality of deaf people’s experience, and will appeal to adults as much as it will to children.
At the Village School in Royalston, we will be sharing Show Me a Sign as a read-aloud in the 5th-6th class, and we’ll discuss the issues of discrimination that it raises. To find out more about the Village School, come to our Virtual Open House this Saturday, February 6th at 10 a.m. Sign up on the homepage of the website: www.villageschoolma.org