Song for a Whale - Lynne Kelly

I really loved this book. I occasionally snag my middle reader's books and it makes me so nostalgic for all the books I read in my room in my own middle reader days. I would have loved this book as a kid too.

In high school, I was lifeguarding at a local water park and started to take sign language classes with my mom and St. Rita School for the Deaf in Cincinnati. I really loved watching the students communicate and loved learning about how ASL changes and adapts with slang and regional "accents" just like spoken English. We not only learned ASL there, but we learned about the history of ASL and why schools like St. Rita's were so important to the deaf community.

I loved seeing these sentiments reflected in Song for a Whale. The main character, Iris is a sixth grader in a main stream school where she can't communicate with anyone. Her mother and brother have a strong grasp of ASL but her father struggles. Her mother was born to two deaf parents and grew up knowing how to sign. When I was learning ASL, I learned that kids of deaf parents knew ASL, but that parents of deaf kids rarely learned. This is a sad reality and leads to a lot of miscommunication between kids and their parents, further isolating deaf kids if they don't have access to other ASL signers.

Iris feels lonely and isolated until she learns about a whale, Blue 55, who sings at a different frequency from other whales. He travels alone through the ocean with no one to talk to since no other whales can understand his song. Iris feels and instant connection and sets out to help Blue 55.

The best part of Song for a Whale is that Lynne Kelly has made sure that Iris is proud of her deaf heritage. She doesn't spend the book longing to be like other kids, she really is just longing to find her place in the world and yearns to be around people she can talk to. She stands up for herself and her identity. It's a great message for kids (and me, I really loved this one). 

5/5 Stars.