Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Just an Amazing Read of Determination & Joy in Living October 27, 2005
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
What should our attitude be towards the deaf? Kisor gives us good insight with his memoir which is beautifully, sensitively and humorouly written. Some would term him an outcast to both the deaf culture and the hearing culture, since he lipreads and doesn't sign. Can't possibly be happy because he can't fully participate in hearing world, he's missing so much. But Kisor disagrees.
He achieved more than most hearing, having accumulated great English language skills. He demonstrates with the rare book written about deafness from a deaf author. His title is fascinating, since it is from story regarding his five-year old son and the nuances lipreading has trouble discerning.
Yes, improvements have happened and will continue with behavioral psychology and deafness, but here the spirit of the human inside is spoken of, something that no program can really guarantee success, but determination, help and support will aid.
This marvelous memoir contributes much to this cause. It is a most wonderful read for all interested in what a deaf person in a hearing world might be going through, especially the emotional strains deafness brings with it. Much to be gleaned here.
A belated discovery June 25, 2005
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I have only just caught up with this book 14 years after it was published. Kisor is very good on how he managed a life as a deaf person who operates orally in a hearing world, and manages to be quite tactful in dealing with the subject of the Deaf -- people who use sign language. He is perhaps more tactful than he really should be in discussing the ignorance of a lot of educators of the severely hearing-impaired and the rather patronizing "poor-you" attitude they often take.
I can say this because I have only a little more hearing than Kisor -- and for the same reason, meningitis at the age of 3. I am ten years older than he but remember well some of the stages he describes so accurately and honestly. Like him, I was lucky in my early teachers and in being kept away from schools for the deaf.
It does need to be said that cognitive psychologists and students of child language have learned a great deal about child language development since Kisor and I were children and even since his book was published in 1991. Their progress dates from Noam Chomsky's destruction of behaviorist notions of language almost 50 years ago. I hope very much that things have changed significantly in the education of the deaf and severely hearing-impaired.
With luck, students will recognize that Kisor is describing a bygone era. But it is an era that was and is still well worth describing.
What's That Pig Outdoors November 29, 2004
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I read this book for an ASL class in college and wow. This book is great. An amazing autobiography written by a deaf man, Henry Kisor who has managed to exist in a hearing world as a deaf man strictly by lip reading. He has been a journalist and this is amazing to me. A wonderful story written in the point of view of a deaf man and his lifelong journey to success and living in the hearing world. Reading this book has made me take a look at my life and made me feel as if I could do anything.
About being Deaf by someone who is Deaf. January 1, 2002
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
I read this book back in 93 when I had just lost my hearing. I was 14 and dealing with suddenly becoming deaf. Most books about Deafness are written by physicians, or parents of the deaf, or children of the deaf, and not by the deaf themselves. Kisor's stories about lipreading and growing up and just being Deaf were wonderful for me to read. It gave me hope... if he is totally Deaf and can accomplish that much, then I, with a little bit of hearing left, certainly should be able to. I would certainly recommend this book to anyone deaf who is oral, anyone late deaffened, or anyone just interested in reading about the trials and joys of a hearing loss.
About being Deaf by someone who is Deaf. January 1, 2002
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
I read this book back in 93 when I had just lost my hearing. I was 14 and dealing with suddenly becoming deaf. Most books about Deafness are written by physicians, or parents of the deaf, or children of the deaf, and not by the deaf themselves. Kisor's stories about lipreading and growing up and just being Deaf were wonderful for me to read. It gave me hope... if he is totally Deaf and can accomplish that much, then I, with a little bit of hearing left, certainly should be able to. I would certainly recommend this book to anyone deaf who is oral, anyone late deaffened, or anyone just interested in reading about the trials and joys of a hearing loss.
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