Special Collections

Christmas Miracles

At Christmas, our hearts are touched by reports of wondrous occurrences that make us stop, reflect, and hope. This luminous book shares true accounts of Christmas miracles-- inspiring events that happened to real people at Christmas time, including:

A Christmas Mystery: A deaf boy's generosity is miraculously rewarded

First Christmas: Newlyweds take part in the local Christmas pageant -- and receive a surprising lesson in timeless love

My Christmas Angel: A pro baseball player visits a children's ward to cheer the patients, and is himself transformed

A Heart for Christmas: A series of coincidences brings new life to a little girl

The Stranger: A gentle, mysterious Christmas Eve visitor awes a family

Christmas Saved My Mother: A rabbi tells how his mother, fleeing the Holocaust, was spared on Christmas Eve

George Misses a Shift: Sudden car trouble on Christmas night saves a couple's life... and more.

Albert Einstein said, "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is." If you believe in miracles -- or want to -- let Christmas Miracles light the candle of hope in your heart this year.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

The Cloak of Dreams

Intriguing fairy tales by the librettist of Béla Bartók’s opera Bluebeard’s CastleA man is changed into a flea and must bring his future parents together in order to become human again. A woman convinces a river god to cure her sick son, but the remedy has mixed consequences. A young man must choose whether to be close to his wife's soul or body. And two deaf mutes transcend their physical existence in the garden of dreams. Strange and fantastical, these fairy tales of Béla Balázs (1884-1949), Hungarian writer, film critic, and famous librettist of Bluebeard's Castle, reflect his profound interest in friendship, alienation, and Taoist philosophy. Translated and introduced by Jack Zipes, one of the world's leading authorities on fairy tales, The Cloak of Dreams brings together sixteen of Balázs's unique and haunting stories.Written in 1921, these fairy tales were originally published with twenty images drawn in the Chinese style by painter Mariette Lydis, and this new edition includes a selection of Lydis's brilliant illustrations. Together, the tales and pictures accentuate the motifs and themes that run throughout Balázs's work: wandering protagonists, mysterious woods and mountains, solitude, and magical transformation. His fairy tales express our deepest desires and the hope that, even in the midst of tragedy, we can transcend our difficulties and forge our own destinies.Unusual, wondrous fairy tales that examine the world's cruelties and twists of fate, The Cloak of Dreams will entertain, startle, and intrigue.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Cosmic Healing

With the onset of sudden profound deafness at the age of 29, Barbara Brodsky set out on a quest to understand the nature of illness and healing, examining the interrelationship of mind and body and our capacity to transcend limitation. Asking the questions What is healing? Who and what heals? Why do some people heal while others do not? she discusses karma and free will, our habit of identifying with a limited sense of self, and our potential for greater healing.

A longtime Buddhist practitioner who began meditation in the '60s, Brodsky discovered a new path on her healing journey when she began channeling the spirit Aaron in 1989. Based on three decades of meticulously kept journals, Cosmic Healing weaves together Brodsky's Buddhist teachings, channeled material from Aaron, exercises for the reader, and an account of her experiences with the healer known as John of God (João Teixeira de Faria) at his teaching center, Casa de Dom Inácio, in Brazil. While Cosmic Healing is channeled in part and has deep roots in traditional dharma, it is at heart a universal story of human growth and discovery. Old beliefs limit us every day. But as Brodsky discovered and teaches, we can learn to recognize such limiting beliefs, transcend them, and live a deeper truth.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Crocodile Meatloaf

As she becomes friends with Rachel, a deaf girl who has joined her sixth-grade class, Alex begins to feel that God has given her a mission to protect Rachel from the boy who is tormenting her.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Crossed Wires

Crossed Wires, a highly original mystery novel, introduces readers to an unusual heroine, who is being stalked by a particularly chilling serial killer. Finley is tenacious, sympathetic, and attractive. What then makes her an unusual sleuth? Finley is deaf. And Finley and the murderer who hunts her inhabit, literally, a new world -almost a new dimension. They live an important part of their lives within the electronic bulletin boards accessed by their personal computers.

Finley, whose hearing impairment makes her vulnerable, has learned to live and rely upon faceless friends, especially Tracy and Jane, she knows only through her modem. She works as a researcher at CIAC, the National Crime Information and Analysis Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey, a very sophisticated clearing house for law enforcement agencies. Even without romance, life is pretty good for Finley, with a challenging job as an electronic detective and an apparently reliable set of friends, until one beautiful fall morning the ebullient Tracy is murdered - her throat slashed and her computer's memory wiped clean.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Crying Hands

Exposes the active collusion with the Nazis of various physicians, administrators, and teachers of the deaf who embraced the Third Reich's eugenics policies. Documents the collusion of deaf leaders, who tried to incorporate all independent deaf groups into one Nazi organization while expelling deaf Jews, and traces resistance against the Third Reich by deaf Germans. Includes personal accounts of some of the 1,215 deaf victims of enforced sterilization, demonstrating the lasting physical and emotional pain of Nazi violations. The author is a retired professor and teacher of deaf students.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

The Cry of the Gull

A memoir by a deaf, French actress who starred in the French production of Children of a Lesser God.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Cultural and Language Diversity and the Deaf Experience

This edited volume provides a comprehensive analysis of deaf people as a culturally and linguistically distinct minority group within American society. Many educators, linguists, and researchers now favor this position, as opposed to that which states that a deaf person simply has an audiological disability. Contributors to this book include members of the deaf community, as well as prominent deaf and hearing educators and researchers. The text contains three sections, covering research on bilingualism and biculturalism, the impact of cultural and language diversity on the deaf experience, and first-hand accounts from deaf community members that highlight the emotional impact of living in the deaf and hearing worlds.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Dad, Jackie, and Me

Jackie Robinson is the new first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers--and the first black player in Major League Baseball. A young boy shares the excitement of Robinson's rookie season with his deaf father.

Winner of the Schneider Family Book Award

Date Added: 03/08/2018

The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin

Being a hefty, deaf newcomer almost makes Will Halpin the least popular guy at Coaler High. But when he befriends the only guy less popular than him, the dork-namic duo has the smarts and guts to figure out who knocked off the star quarterback. Will can't hear what's going on, but he's a great observer. So, who did it? And why does that guy talk to his fingers? And will the beautiful girl ever notice him? (Okay, so Will's interested in more than just murder . . . )

Those who prefer their heroes to be not-so-usual and with a side of wiseguy will gobble up this witty, geeks-rule debut.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Dead Body Language

Thirty-seven year old journalist, Connor Westphal, has relocated from San Francisco to Flat Skunk, a mining-turned-tourist town in the foothills of the Sierras, to start up her own weekly paper. Suddenly, dead bodies begin turning up in the most unusual places, setting Connor on a hunt for a killer. You might say Connor has a sixth sense when it comes to investigating...but she only has four of the usual five senses. Connor Westphal is deaf. But being hearing impaired doesn't stop Connor from pursuing the murderer. Without sound to distract her, she attends to subtleties that others overlook and ultimately unravels the mystery.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Deaf And Hearing Siblings In Conversation

This is the first book to consider both deaf and hearing perspectives on the dynamics of adult sibling relationships. Deaf and hearing authors Berkowitz and Jonas conducted interviews with 22 adult siblings, using ASL and spoken English, to access their intimate thoughts. A major feature of the book is its analysis of how isolation impacts deaf-hearing sibling relationships. The book documents the 150 year history of societal attitudes embedded in sibling bonds and identifies how the siblings' lives were affected by the communication choices their parents made. The authors weave information throughout the text to reveal attitudes toward American Sign Language and the various roles deaf and hearing siblings take on as monitors, facilitators, signing-siblings and sibling-interpreters, all of which impact lifelong bonds. Included: questions for guided discussion, extensive bibliography, and other features.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Deaf Child Crossing

Megan is excited when Cindy moves into her neighborhood -- maybe she'll finally have a best friend. Sure enough, the two girls quickly become inseparable. Cindy even starts to learn sign language so they can communicate more easily.

But when they go away to summer camp together, problems arise. Cindy feels left out, because Megan is spending all of her time with Lizzie, another deaf girl; Megan resents that Cindy is always trying to help her, even when she doesn't need help. Before they can mend their differences, both girls have to learn what it means to be a friend.

A sensitive depiction of childhood friendship with its fragility, jealousies, and joys" - Booklist

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Deaf Culture A to Z

"A is for American Sign Language. American Sign Language (ASL) is the language of signs used among many Deaf people. Each sign represents a word or words. In the picture on the right, the boy is signing, "What should I do?" The librarian answers, "You can read a book on Deaf Culture." ASL is a beautiful language and it is fun to learn."

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Deafening

This novel interweaves the lives of its two main characters - Grania, deaf since age five; and her husband Jim, who serves as a medic on the battlefields of World War I. The story begins with Grania's childhood in a small Canadian town, and her years at a residential school for the deaf. Her relationships within her family are portrayed with insight and depth. Jim leaves for Europe two weeks after his marriage to Grania, and much of the book involves his horrifying experience of the war. The author based Grania's character on her own grandmother, who was deaf, and has done extensive research on both deaf history and the social history of the World War I era. This is an absorbing novel and gives a refreshingly rounded depiction of a woman with a disability.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Deaf Heritage

This in-depth history of Deaf America begins with an overview of the early years. Each chapter then covers a decade of history, beginning with 1880. The text is supplemented by marvelous pictures, illustrations, vignettes and biographical profiles. "Subchapters" chronicle the multi-facited dimensions of Deaf culture by focusing on Deaf athletes and more. A complete Deaf Culture course!

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Deaf in Japan

Until the mid-1970s, deaf people in Japan had few legal rights and little social recognition. Legally, they were classified as minors or mentally deficient, unable to obtain driver's licenses or sign contracts and wills.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Deaf Like Me

Deaf Like Me is the moving account of parents coming to terms with their baby girl's profound deafness. The love, hope, and anxieties of all hearing parents of deaf children are expressed here with power and simplicity.

In the epilogue, Lynn Spradley as a teenager reflects upon being deaf, her education, her struggle to communicate, and the discovery that she was the focus of her father's and uncle's book. At once moving and inspiring, Deaf Like Me is must reading for every parent, relative, and friend of deaf children everywhere.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

The Deaf Musicians

Lee is a piano man. Every night, he plays jazz for the crowd. It sounds something like this:

Plink-a-plink-BOMP-plink-plink.

Yimba-timba-TANG-ZANG-ZANG.

One night, Lee's bandmates notice something is off. Lee's music comes out like this:

Ronk. Phip. Tonk.

There's no way to hide it: Lee is losing his hearing. Then Lee discovers sign language. And soon after, he meets Max, who plays the sax. Together they form a new band-the Deaf Musicians. But who will listen to a deaf musician?

With The Deaf Musicians, Pete Seeger, Paul DuBois Jacobs, and three-time Coretta Scott King Honor winner R. Gregory Christie present an inspiring story of overcoming obstacles, set to a jazzy score.

OO-AH, BE-DOOP, BE-DOOP, OO-AH, YEAH!

Winner of the Schneider Family Book Award

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Dovey Coe

There have been Coes living in the mountains of Indian Creek, North Carolina, going on forever, and everyone in town is amazed that twelve-year-old Dovey might ur and do such a terrible thing. Even if the girl does have the tendency to shoot her mouth off, she's had good reason since she's always had to stick up for her brother, Amos, who may be older and bigger, but folks treat like he's slow on account of his being deaf. Her sister, Caroline, might shake her head over Dovey's high spirits, but if Caroline hadn't been letting the likes of Parnell Caraway hang around her all summer, Dovey wouldn't be in this mess. Dovey's not one to sit back when troubles are brewing, but now with this murder charge, for once she might just have to keep quiet and let the slick city lawyer take care of things, or will she?

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Earth and Ashes

"You know, father, sorrow can turn to water and spill from your eyes, or it can sharpen your tongue into a sword, or it can become a time bomb that, one day, will explode and destroy you"

Earth and Ashes is the spare, powerful story of an Afghan man, Dastaguir, trying desperately to reach his son Murad, who has left his village to earn a living working at a mine. In the meantime the village has been bombed by the Russian army, and Dastaguir, with his newly-deaf grandson Yassin in tow, must reach Murad to tell him of the carnage. The old man is beset on all sides by sorrow, that of his grandson, who cannot understand, that of his son, who does not yet know, and his own, made even crueler by the message he must deliver.

Atiq Rahimi, whose reputation for writing war stories of immense drama and intimacy began with this, his first novel, has managed to condense centuries of Afghan history into a short tale of three very different generations. But he has also created a universal story about fathers and sons, and the terrible strain inflicted on those bonds of family during the unpredictable carnage of war.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Echo

In book two of the Sensations series, Cassie Dixon's getaway to the mountains with her friends and their thirteen-year-old deaf son becomes a high-stakes search when the boy disappears. Danger stalks the slopes.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Eloquent Silence

Lauri is a dedicated young teacher for the deaf. Her past conceals a wound still unhealed, her present is a facade, and she uses her career to hide her loneliness. Drake, daytime TV's most popular star, has two secrets -- the daughter he believes may never have a normal life and the dead wife he can't forget. Jennifer is the beautiful hearing-impaired child who may become a pawn between the man and the woman she needs most. Now, in a chic New Mexico arts community, the three are given a chance to be a family...but first each must find a voice to express the deepest fears and greatest needs of the heart.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Enforcing Normalcy

This book tries to think through some of the complex issues raised by concepts such as the body, the normal, the abnormal, disability, the disabled, and people with disabilities. I wrote this book because I believe deeply that people with disabilities, Deaf people, and others who might not even consider themselves as having a disability have been relegated to the margins by the very people who have celebrated and championed the emergence of multiculturalism, class consciousness, feminism, and queer studies from the margins.

Date Added: 03/08/2018

Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language

From the seventeenth century to the early years of the twentieth, the population of Martha's Vineyard manifested an extremely high rate of profound hereditary deafness.

In stark contrast to the experience of most deaf people in our own society, the Vineyarders who were born deaf were so thoroughly integrated into the daily life of the community that they were not seen-- and did not see themselves-- as handicapped or as a group apart. Deaf people were included in all aspects of life, such as town politics, jobs, church affairs, and social life.

How was this possible? On the Vineyard, hearing and deaf islanders alike grew up speaking sign language. This unique sociolinguistic adaptation meant that the usual barriers to communication between the hearing and the deaf, which so isolate many deaf people today, did not exist.

Date Added: 03/08/2018