Book #16, Graphix #12
Original Book - Writer: Ann M.Martin
Graphix Book - Illustrator: Chan Chau
Basic plot
Jessi takes a regular babysitting job with new clients. One of the kids, Matt, is Deaf, so she learns ASL to communicate with him. Meanwhile she has gotten the lead role in her ballet School's production of Coppelia.
Things that are kept the same
- Jessi takes regular sitting job for the Braddocks, who have two children Matt (who is Deaf) and Hayley. She meets them and starts to learn ASL, before starting the sitting job.
- Jessi gets the part of Swanhilda in Coppelia in her ballet school, two of the girls in her class, Hilary and Mary Beth, are not being friendly and say that Mme Noelle is favouring her because she is the youngest.
- Jessi and the Braddocks meet Jenny and Mary Anne out for a walk and Jenny is quite rude not understanding about deafness, which upsets Hayley.
- Jessi gets on well with the Braddocks, she grows close with Matt and also helps Hayley talk through her feelings of resentment towards Matt.
- She brings the Braddocks to the Pikes house, and they think the "secret language" (ASL) is cool and they become friends.
- Jessi meets Mary Beth's sister, Adele. She is surprised to find out Adele is Deaf but her family have not learned sign language, she spends most of her time in boarding school. Jessi communicating with Adele and talking with Mary Beth, encourages her to start an ASL class so she she can have a better relationship with her sister.
- Jessi arranges for Matt's class to come see her ballet show with Hayley and her mom acting as narrator/interpreters to help. It is a great success.
Things from other books
- Nothing stood out as an addition from other books.
- In the graphix because Jessi joined earlier it is mentioned (in Graphix 8), that her family are house hunting and staying in temporary accommodation. As in the original books she moves into Stacey's old house I thought this would be followed up on in this book or the last one, but it hasn't, so it's unclear if Jessi lives in Stacey's old house or if they moved into a different house before she left.
Things that are changed
- Plot is largely the same as the original book, but I do notice things have been pared down, obviously big descriptions about what BSC members look like or how to do certain signs are not needed in a visual medium, but also some conversations are shortened for example Jessi and Hayley's conversation about resenting siblings or the BSC meeting no longer has Kristy mentioning her mom wanting a baby or Mary Anne taking a call from Logan.
- Also there is less of Jessi talking about being one of the few back families in Stoneybrook as obviously in the graphix there is more diversity, you can see this around the school and of course Logan is black in this version. (A nice visual addition is her and Becca wearing silk caps to bed to protect their hair). Jessi still has had trouble fitting in, but it's more about being a new kid than her race.
- Three chapters about babysitting jobs have been left out. Dawn and Mal babysitting the Pikes, who start making up their own signs. Another chapter is Claudia babysitting the Brewers, she tells them about the secret language, to distract Karen from her ghost stories and they spend the evening ringing Jessi asking her to look up things in the ASL dictionary (if that was included they could just look up signs on internet these days!). Then a chapter of Kristy babysitting Becca and Squirt, where Charlotte comes over to play (establishing Char and Becca have become close friends)
- Not a change but thought it is interesting to note because they've skipped over book 15 (Little Miss Stoneybrook...and Dawn), a big plot point that Jeff has moved back to California, feels a little strange that Dawn just mentions how she is feeling about it in a meeting.
- There are some little changes to how the book handles the Deaf Community and ASL throughout. The intro thanks Lynne Kelly for her expertise in helping to make the book, it also notes because of the lettering format (all uppercase) that any reference to Deaf person is intended to have a capital "D"
- In the original book at times the refer to ASL as Ameslan which is not preferred term but was used in some books in 70s/80s.
- Advantage of being visual is the graphix can draw out the signs rather than try and describe them.
- When Jessi goes to talk to Matt's class about ballet, in the book she talks and signs, but in the graphix Mrs Braddock and teacher interpret as Mrs B. say it is difficult to do both at same time as each language has its own grammar and structure.
- Jessi comes up with her own name sign early in the book. In the graphix Matt gives her name sign after the show, this is important and special to be given a name sign by Deaf person as it shows she has been accepted into the Deaf Community.
Final Thoughts
A jump in timeline, I wondered how they were going to handle plot points like Jeff leaving, if we would get some of that in this book but seems like they just moved right on with Dawn just mentioning the move. In a lot of ways the graphix cutting out things can be advantage (we really don't need a run down of how the club works, everyone's personality and looks in every book) but do miss out on some of the build up. I had actually forgotten in these early books how much of a lead up to plots there was, like here is the first mention of Kristy's mom talking about babies, which is lead up to book 24. It's fun seeing the groundwork of these plots so it's a pity these are missed out. I also note that some of the extra babysitting jobs tend to get the cut a lot, which I suppose makes for tighter plot but sometimes could be fun to see.
While there ave been updates on how they treat ASL and Deaf community in the graphix, I think Ann did pretty good job in the original book, it would have been nice to see some representation back in the 80s and it's good that the Graphix were able to build on that and improve where needed.
