Description

Friends, Like You Book    $14.00 + S/H  Clarke Schools has been a wonderful resource for many years, from their great newsletter, annual conference, onsite services and practical educational resources. This book provides a powerful message of “I’m okay” to children with hearing loss and their class peers. It is a great book for parents to share with their children, and then their child’s school!    Molly and Max are two regular kids who happen to have a hearing loss. Listening can be hard work and misunderstandings happen sometimes, but they don’t let their hearing loss stop them from making friends and having fun! An ideal teaching tool for raising awareness about hearing loss and promoting friendships in mainstream settings.  By Melissa Griswold, M.E.D., illustrated by Cynthia Fisher. Published in 2007.

 

Testimonials:

By a Parent “ Shared by the book’s author: I wanted to thank you for writing the book Friends, Like You.  Our two children, both hard-of-hearing and attending mainstream school, were excited to share this book with their class. They read the book to us at home and then read it at school to their class. It allowed the teacher and students to discuss hearing loss in more general terms without having the focus solely on our children. The story itself did a great job of explaining some of the challenges that hard-of-hearing and deaf children encounter in social situations. The book was well-written for elementary school-aged children and was nicely illustrated as well. Thank you so much for writing such a great book!

 

By a Parent “ What a nice book. The tone is so appropriate, the information is clear and to the point, and the illustrations are very good. My just-7-year-old picked it up and read it through last night, and she enjoyed it so much that she even chose to use it for her reading lesson this morning (we home school). You could see that Ella got totally engaged with the characters of Molly and Max, in a way that was separate from the issue of their hearing loss, but she also was interested in the fact of their hearing loss and the different devices, because of her best friend, Dario, who is 8 uses hearing aids. I was very interested to see that even though we have been close with Dario since he was born, I had not actually thought of a couple of the suggestions the book gave for ensuring that he understands. It gave my daughters insight into what it is like for Dario in a way that they had never considered. I suggested giving the book to Dario so he could give it to his teacher and they could use it in their classroom, but they insisted that we keep it, and Dario’s teacher can order one for himself.

 

By a Teacher  “A hearing specialist gave my student, Julie, a copy of Friends, Like You to take home and read with her brother.  It was suggested that maybe I would read it to the class if she did not want to.  At first Julie wanted me to read it and I started to, but then she took over and the result was almost magical.  Her fellow students listened to her quite intently.  When she was done they asked her respectful questions.  She answered them without hesitation or embarrassment.  The dialogue that ensued was very powerful.  I could tell that Julie felt confident and that her peers had a deeper insight into their classmate.  Friends, Like You provided an opportunity for communication about Julie that I could never have achieved just by chatting with my students.”                                            4^th grade teacher