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REVIEWS The Day We Met Cindy, Anne Marie Starowitz, 14 pp., $9.95 durable paperback, Kendall Green Publications, Gallaudet University Press, Washington, D.C, 1988. Among the many attractive features of this bright, colorful children's book are its pleasing illustrations, durable pages and accurate portrayal of the discomfort children often feel when they first encounter someone with a physical disability such as deafness. The story conveys, then resolves these feelings as a class of hearing children begin to learn sign language under the tutelage of a deaf adult. The author, an elementary school teacher, portrays the fascination typical of children given the opportunity to learn the new and exciting way to talk with their hands. She also shows the children using their new skills in math, social studies , English and music lessons. When the story was read aloud and simultaneously read in signs by a deaf adult to a class of elementary-age oral deaf children as a test for this review, the children became enthralled with the signs. They created name signs for themselves , thumbed through the book and practiced their newlylearned signs during a regular circle time. The Day We Met Cindyis a useful tool to introduce young children to sign language and deafness. It is equally helpful in illustrating for regular educators their student's probable interest in these concepts. Suzanne Gray Pickett, B.A. graduate student Virginia Commonwealth University Lotion, Virginia Teaching the Moderately and Severely Handicapped Studentand AutisticStudent, ElvaDuran, Ph.D., 225 pp., $37.50 hard cover, Charles C Thomas, Springfield, Illinois , 1988. This volume takes on a complex subject and makes it less so with a well-organized and readable text. Clearly the author has conceptualized the multitude of issues surrounding teaching multihandicapped students over many years of front-line experience. Despite limited references to deafness, the topics the book portrays are certainly applicable to the education of multihandicapped hearing-impaired students. Issues related to children of Hispanic backgrounds, particularly language and culture, receive extensive attention and certainly parallel deafness. Although the book offers little new information directly relevant to the field of education of the deaf, it identifies many of the variables that come into play in working with or developing a program for any multihandicapped student. The book has much to offer the college student or beginning teacher. It would also be helpful for the orientation of seasoned teachers of the deaf who are beginning to see multihandicapped hearing-impaired children in their classrooms. John Snavlin, M.S. W. Assistant Principal for Multihandicapped Programs Maryland School for the Deaf Columbia, Maryland I Didn't Hear the Dragon Roar, Frances M. Parsons, 251 pp., hardcover, Gallaudet University Press, Washington , D.C, 1988. In 1986, the author embarked on a three-month journey through the People's Republic of China. A deaf woman in her 60s, she chose to meet the challenge of negotiating this mysterious land on her own, without doubt, a formidable accomplishment. In this account of her travels, she chronicles her daily existence as she surmounts barriers of language and culture to find accommodations, food and transportation on a limited budget. In China, she learns, no tasks are easily accomplished . Parsons thoroughly details the logistics of her sojourn and offers advice that would be a valuable guide for all who would venture to the world's most populous nation. A lecturer in art history at Gallaudet University, Parsons beautifully describes the many famous monuments in her itinery, as well as her visits to several Chinese schools for deaf children. Nonetheless, Parsons seldom delves beneath the surface and for this reason the book lacks the depth and insight that makes the best travel literature both compelling and inspirational . She complains, for example, about the communal showers in which many parts of the country are the only bathing facility available to citizens and all but the well-financed traveler. Yet never does she explain the reason that communal bathing is the rule in China. Far more interesting than her personal discomfort, but untold in this work, are the antecedents of poverty and overpopulation which render privacy a rare commodity and public bathing an efficient use of limited resources. This book would be...

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