When the university merged his Department of Linguistics with English, Professor Desmond Bates took early retirement, but he is not enjoying it. But his daily discontent is nothing compared to the affliction of hearing loss, which is a constant source of domestic friction and social embarrassment. In the popular imagination, he observes, deafness is comic, as blindness is tragic, but for the deaf person himself it is no joke. It is through his deafness...

"Ever since she was a child, Louise has been not quite hearing and not quite deaf. After an audiology test shows that almost all her hearing is gone, her doctor suggests a cochlear implant. This irreversible operation would give Louise a new sense of hearing, but it would come at the expense of her natural hearing, which has shaped her relationship with the world, full of whispers and shadows." --

With a family who refuses to learn sign language, twelve-year-old Effie is mostly cut off from human communication at home, unable to speak of her abusive stepfather or violent father--only her interpreter understands, and Miss Kathy is willing to take Effie's case to court to provide her with a safe home. Told in verse.