Spring 2019, Wild Readers 5 discussion

I read El Deafo by Cece Bell for this Goodreads review. I think this has to be my favorite Goodreads book I’ve read so far. I was so into this story, it was hard to put it down. This story is about Cece who struggles to balance her childhood while being deaf. She portrays herself as a rabbit (which I thought was an adorable touch). She comes from a loving family and has a great life up until she gets sick and becomes deaf. She now has to attend a special education kindergarten class with other disabled children. Cece isn’t happy about this at all which is very understandable. She struggles to make friends because of her uniqueness so she decides to create a superhero alter ego of “El Deafo”. Throughout the story, Cece becomes best friends with Martha, who treats her like a normal girl. I think the reason I loved reading this story so much was because I felt like every kid should read it. This story is such a great reminder to be kind to EVERYONE because you never know what he or she is really going through. I also really like how it talks about the ups and downs Cece had. I’m glad they didn’t just talk about her struggles because even if you’re different or have a disability, that doesn’t mean it has to define you. Overall, I plan on reading this story to my own children some day and having it in my classroom library because I think it’s an important and fun one for my students to read.