Gr 3–7—Mary Lambert is struggling with guilt due to her brother's accidental death and also seeks to find her place
in her tight-knit Martha's Vineyard community. When an outsider comes to study the deaf community and kidnaps
her as a "live specimen," Mary must find strength within herself to escape. LeZotte packs this historical fiction novel
with cultural information regarding 19th-century Martha's Vineyard, addressing treatment of Native Nations,
disability, grief, and prejudice in this slow-burn, occasionally dark #OwnVoices novel.

LeZotte brings the reader into a deaf world but this is not a book about the disabled – it’s about a vibrant community where many of the residents happen to the deaf. --"Deafness is not an affliction. The only thing it stops me from doing is hearing." p.95

Show Me A Sign is the story of Mary Lambert’s life on Martha’s Vineyard – her family tragedy, her friends, the people in her tight knight community. Mary’s life has been a contented one until she and her parents (in particular her mother) have to cope with grief from a family tragedy. Her mother lashes out at Mary and her father (we a mother who is not perfect). Then a visitor to the island and shows Mary another view of her community (where they are “deaf and dumb”) – one she finds both baffling and infuriating.
The novel starts at an easeful pace with lots of great historical detail and descriptive language and switches to a thriller midway. It also allows the reader to explore their own ideas about ability and prejudice. This is teased out in different characters’ ideas about the Wampanoag, freed slaves, the role of women, and the deaf community on Martha’s Vineyard.
I would recommend this to an upper elementary student. I like that the author provides historical information as an addendum to the novel for those readers curious to learn more about events, people, and cultures introduced in the novel.
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This book has a slow start and a slow middle, but there's surprise, danger and action in the second half. I almost gave the book a full five stars, but there was something unsatisfying about the story for me. Questions about the plot lingered in my mind unresolved. (Why didn't Andrew take Mary to Dr. Minot straight away? Why keep her in that filthy inn for weeks? Why didn't Mary use gestures to ask for paper and quill the first time she met Dr. Minot? Furthermore, why only send Ezra after Mary? Why not send more men from the island to find Andrew in Boston?)

Author LeZotte (who is Deaf herself making this an #OwnVoices story) explores prejudice and disability through a historical lens but with a modern sensibility. While many people historically (and currently) see disability as a negative, the reader sees Mary as a fully capable human who happens to speak a different language and experience the world in a different way than hearing people.

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I’m so glad I saw this at the library and decided to check it out! It turned out to be really good and I learned some really cool historical facts that the story was based on. So the story is set on the island of Martha’s Vineyard on which there is a very high deaf population, basically 1 out of every 5 people are born deaf. It was determined to be a hereditary trait passed down from the settlers that first came there from the specific area of Kent County, England that also had a higher deaf population. Because the deafness was caused by a genetic mutation, those born deaf had no associated anomalies of deafness. Because the island had such a high deaf population on top of its secluded nature, everyone there (both deaf and speaking) could communicate through a form of sign language referred to as Martha Vineyard’s Sign Language (MVSL). Due to this, they were able to live a normal public life that was not overshadowed by prejudice or the inability to communicate in certain situations. All of this basis for the story is true history and does make a great setting for a book.

The main character, Mary, and her family are still mourning the loss of her brother who died around a year ago in an accident. When a scientist visits the island to study its unique deaf population, he brings some of the outside world’s prejudice with him and makes some waves in the community. But then something far worse happens, Mary is kidnapped and taken to be studied on the mainland! She comes face to face with the prejudice of deafness there and finds herself unable to communicate because she can find no clear opportunity to find someone else who knows sign language, and even if they did she realizes their version of it may not be the same as her own.

I will not spoil anything about the ending of the book but will only say that I enjoyed the ending. The writing itself was very beautiful as well, lyrical in a way. My copy of the book had extras in the back that talk about the history the story is based on and have more info on the author and a q&a section. Here, the author expresses that when she writes, she doesn’t so much think of full sentences in her head that she then writes down, but it’s more like different images and feelings playing out that translates on page. That really came across in the feeling and imagery in her book. ( )

this was a really nice look at discrimination and also how sign language is really just another foreign (to those who don't use it) language. i didn't know that there are different pockets of places where different sign languages developed, but it makes total sense, like dialects of spoken language.

this showed all that history nicely. the plot, though, i'm less clear on. there didn't seem to be much of a point to it, honestly, but to show what i wrote above. that's important enough to warrant this a read, but i wished there was more to it. ( )