June 20, 2019
El Deafo
Written and Illustrated Cece Bell
Graphic Novel Memoir
Autobiography
Awards
- John Newbery Medal
About the Author/Illustrator
Cece Bell is an American children’s book author and illustrator. She was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. She studied art and illustration in college. Cece Bell has written many books including, El Deafo, I Yam a Donkey, and Itty Bitty. She is also married to another children’s book author, Tom Angleberger, whom she has also co-written books with.
Book Summary
El Deafo chronicles the life of Cece, her hearing loss, and her quest for a true friend. At age 4, Cece gets very sick with meningitis and loses her hearing. The reader is taken on Cece’s coming of age journey through hospital stays, to doctors visits, making friends, losing friends, moving and changing schools and even her first crush. Cece has to navigate wearing hearing aides with long cards and lip reading to help her communicate and understand others. She has to wear a really powerful hearing aid while at school that she is very self-conscious of, but is later the source of El Deafo’s all hearing super powers. As Cece’s journey progresses, she eventually finds her place in her world and a true friend that appreciates her for who she is, deaf, glasses, and everything in between.
I’ve read a lot of graphic novels myself, but never got the chance to experience them in a classroom setting. As they have grown in popularity since then and they’re now becoming more acceptable in schools, I am very excited about the possibilities. I think they are a great tool to engage students and cultivate an interest in and love of reading. El Deafo would be a great novel to use with upper elementary and middle grade students. This touching and funny story about Cece’s life was portrayed with cute animal characters that are brought to life by Cece’s cartoon illustrations. Bell (2015) mentions that she felt that a graphic novel would be the best way to show readers her story, especially because of the speech bubbles. Bell creatively uses speech bubbles to show the reader when Cece cannot hear anything, that is when the speech bubbles have no text or when the text is kind of faded (as pictured below). Through this technique, she was able to convey a range of emotions. Cece’s fear is brought to life when she first realizes she cannot hear and she is shown frantically searching for her mother.
Bell also uses humor throughout the graphic novel, sort of like comic relief from the more serious moments in her life. After Cece finds out that she cannot hear and spends even more time in the hospital, she says, “Just because I can’t hear good doesn’t mean I can’t look good.” (pg. 13). This reaction feels so honest and true to a 4 year old.
Cece has to deal with some big changes and Bell is very honest about sharing how she felt while going through all of it. Bell states, in her note from the author in the back of El Deafo, that “while [she] was writing and drawing the book, [she] was more interesting in capturing the specific feelings [she] had as a kid with hearing loss than in being 100 percent accurate with the details.” (pg. 236). Bell was very successful in portraying those feelings as well as many other feelings that I am sure many children, hearing loss or not, could relate to. In addition to all the emotional accuracy, Bell shared some very specific and accurate aspects about dealing with hearing loss, especially during the 80s. I cannot imagine having to have such a large phonic ear strapped to me while going to elementary school (pictured below).
(If you want to see more examples from her real life and how these were used to shape Cece’s character in the book check out this article: https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/gallery/2015/aug/04/cece-bell-el-deafo-in-pictures)
Another literary element she used well was figurative language. Bell used metaphors such as being underwater (pictured below) or being on another planet (pictured above). She paired these with illustrations to help the reader see what it was like to be able to hear and then suddenly not or to have to read lips because what she could hear was a garbled mess of sounds.
The illustrations also brought to life Cece’s imaginings of herself as El Deafo with superpowers. She used this character of herself to cope with being different, other people not understanding what it was like to be deaf, and navigating friendships.
References
Bell, C. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://cecebell.wordpress.com/
Bell, C. (2015). Cece Bell: how I made El Deafo – in pictures. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/gallery/2015/aug/04/cece-bell-el-deafo-in-pictures
Tunnell, M. O., Jacobs, J. S., Young, T. A., & Bryan, G. (2016). Children’s Literature, Briefly (6th ed.). Upple Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Neverending Stories 