The Color of Silence

February 15, 2013
A traumatized teen heals with the help of a Very Special Disabled Girl who exists to teach her an Important Lesson. Alex has barely spoken since the car accident that took the life of her best friend Cali. Traumatized and self-absorbed, the former Broadway-musical buff has avoided school, singing and conversation for a year. Court-ordered community service introduces her to Joanie, whose neuromuscular disorder prevents her from speaking. Brief chapters reveal both girls' viewpoints: Alex's silent and empty present interspersed with flashbacks to her joyful friendship with the boisterous Cali; Joanie's silent and friendless hospitalization similarly flashing back to her social life before her illness became so severe. Alex, arriving as Joanie's court-mandated friend, is roped by an eager speech therapist into helping Joanie learn to use an eye-controlled speech board. It doesn't take long before Joanie's eagerness, optimism and need draw Alex out of her grief and self-loathing. Tragedy strikes for Joanie, but she's served her fictional purpose: Alex is cured. All Joanie's endearing characterization is for naught, as the stale trope of disabled person dying to teach a life lesson overwhelms her personhood. Ultimately, this is Alex's tale alone; Joanie could just as easily have been a Very Special Old Person or a Very Special Poor Person. For a nonverbal teen who is a character and not just a plot device, leave this aside and try Sharon Draper's Out of My Mind (2010). (Fiction. 12-16)

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May 1, 2013

Gr 8 Up-Scarred by the trauma of a car accident that killed her best friend, Alex, 17, approaches her upcoming community-service assignment with a great deal of apprehension. She has barely spoken to anyone since the accident, still suffers with massive migraines, and can't get past the feeling that the accident was her fault. She is assigned to work at a hospital with a severely disabled girl about her age. Because of a neuromuscular disease, Joanie can't speak and is confined to bed. But in her head, her words and thoughts flow as beautifully as the colors of the rainbow she sees reflected in her room. Alex begins to think that Joanie can communicate more than people realize, and together they take some preliminary steps to try and get the words out of Joanie's head. In the process, Alex opens up to Joanie, talking to her more than to anyone else, and Joanie, in her own way, responds to Alex's friendship. When Joanie suffers from an untimely illness, Alex is forced to confront death once again, but this time she takes steps toward healing. The story alternates narrators-in one chapter Alex flashes back to the events leading up to the accident and then focuses on her current situation while in the next chapter, Joanie shares her thoughts and memories of the world around her. This plot structure takes a little getting used to, but it gives a more personal viewpoint to the events. The story starts slowly but builds to a strong emotional climax and gives readers a sense that Alex will recover from her trauma as her world slowly regains color.-Diana Pierce, Leander High School, TX

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