How do you explain music to a person who doesn't hear? It
seems an impossible task. Second-time author Antony John
takes that question one step further in FIVE FLAVORS OF
DUMB and asks: how do you explain music through a person
who doesn't hear? Granted, his protagonist Piper wears
hearing aids that allow her to hear to a small degree; but
it is from somewhere deep inside, where music is just a
vibration that she feels in her chest and coming up through
her feet, where she really connects with the pounding
rhythms of the Seattle rock scene.
When Piper boasts that she could get a paying gig for a
local high-school band, she finds herself inadvertently
voted in as the group's manager. The members of Dumb, the
band Piper has chosen to manage, each have their reasons
for joining a band, and for being attracted to rock in the
first place. As she comes to understand these band
members, Piper starts to understand rock itself.
Her family thinks her being a band manager is a joke, but
Piper takes the job seriously, which only serves to
underscore the differences between the way she sees herself
and the way her parents see her. Piper doesn't consider
herself disabled, just different. She is upset at her
parents for getting cochlear implants for her profoundly
deaf baby sister, and the complex emotions involved with
this give insight into what it is like to be a deaf child
in a family with hearing parents -- or a hearing child
living with deaf parents, as was her mother's case.
Rather than didactically preaching tolerance or having
dealing with deafness be the entire point of the book,
Piper's story is more about recognizing how the history of
rock reflects her own feelings of differentness and
connects her to her family. She doesn't triumph despite
her disabilities. She triumph's because she's smart and
creative. That makes this an important book for a YA
reader seeking a starting place to understand deaf
culture.
The Challenge: Piper has one month to get the rock band
Dumb a paying gig.
The Deal: If she does it, Piper will
become the band's manager and get her share of the
profits.
The Catch: How can Piper possibly manage one
egomaniacal pretty boy, one talentless piece of eye candy,
one crush, one silent rocker, and one angry girl? And how
can she do it when she's deaf?
Piper can't hear
Dumb's music, but with growing self-confidence, a budding
romance, and a new understanding of the decision her family
made to buy a cochlear implant for her deaf baby sister, she
discovers her own inner rock star and what it truly means to
be a flavor of Dumb.
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