Handtalk Zoo

by Mary Beth Miller, Mary Beth

Words and sign language depict children at the zoo discovering how to sign the names of various animals and how to tell time

Genres: Picture Books

32 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1989

Reviews

[Codie Gates · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, a deaf class goes to the zoo! The book is filled with pictures of the students making the signs for those animals and food at lunch.

[Hannah Hart · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some children go to the zoo and talk using sign language while they are there! They show the signs for all the animals and other things you might see or do at the zoo.

This is a cool book, but as a reader you can't learn any sign language from it. The children moving their hands doing sign language is just a blur. It doesn't show how to move your hands to sign.

Even though the book was not my favorite, it would still be a good book to have in a classroom, especially if there is a hearing impaired child in the class. It would be great for a teacher or student to actually learn the signs so that they could teach all the students as they read the book together.

[Kathy MacMillan · Rating 4 out of 5]

As they make their way through the zoo, a group of children sign and fingerspell the names of the animals. In addition to signing animal names, the telling of time is expressed with the signing of numbers 1–12 in a clocklike shape. Vibrant color photographs depict the action of the story and the signing, while black-and-white insets show the fingerspelling.