Hands of My FatherA Hearing Boy, His Deaf Parents, and the Language of Love
LOUIS AND SARAH UHLBERG HAD THEIR F IRS T CHILD, MYRON, at the absolute bottom of the Great Depression—an expression of extraordinary optimism, and typical of the joy and resilience of these two inspiring individuals
Their son’s first language was American Sign Language, the first sign he learned: “I love you.” But his second language was spoken English, and at a very young age he was called upon to act as interpreter in the stores and streets beyond their Brooklyn apartment. This meant not only straddling the worlds of the hearing and the deaf, but reversing the roles of parent and child—and then having to flip back again to being his father’s little boy.
Listening to the radio, he signed for his father every blow in the historic Joe Louis-Max Schmeling boxing match, and he learned about the war through his father’s signed translations of the newspaper. From the beaches of Coney Island to the Dodgers’ Ebbets Field, this is a memoir about growing up not just as the hearing son of two deaf people but as a book-loving, mischief-making, tree-climbing kid in Brooklyn during the period that spanned the Depression, World War II and the early 50s.
MYRON UHLBERG is the critically acclaimed and award-winning author of a number of children’s books, including Dad, Jackie, and Me.
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The award-winning author of Dad, Jackie, and Me, Myron Uhlberg has penned a poignant, riveting memoir about growing up as the hearing son of two deaf parents.