If a Tree Falls: A Family's Quest to Hear and Be HeardA revealing memoir of a family and a “wrenching journey into deafness from the standpoint of a mother, a wife, a daughter, a philosopher, and a Jew” (Ilan Stavans, author of On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language). When her daughters were born deaf, Jennifer Rosner was stunned. Then she discovered a hidden history of deafness in her family, going back generations to the Jewish enclaves of Eastern Europe. Traveling back in time in her mind, she imagined her silent relatives, who showed surprising creativity in dealing with a world that preferred to ignore them. Here, in a “gentle meditation on sound and silence, love and family” Rosner shares her journey into the modern world of deafness, and the controversial decisions she and her husband made about hearing aids, cochlear implants and sign language (Publishers Weekly). Punctuated by memories of being unheard, Rosner’s imaginative odyssey of dealing with her daughters’ deafness is at its heart a story of whether she—a mother with perfect hearing—can ever truly hear her children. |
What people are saying - Write a review
Reviews aren't verified, but Google checks for and removes fake content when it's identified
LibraryThing Review
User Review - suesbooks - LibraryThingI read this book for a second time after many years and probably got no more out of it than the first time I read it. The family struggles when dealing with a family with many challenges (hearing ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - suesbooks - LibraryThingThis book was fine to learn about the hearing impaired community, and how a family dealt with their hearing impaired daughters. Some fiction was interspersed, but it added very little to the book, as the writing was journalistic. Read full review
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
arms asked audiologist baby baby’s bathroom Bill Bill’s breath Budapest carriage chair cheek child Clarke school cochlear implant Cynthia daugh Deaf community Deaf culture deaf relatives diaper didn’t doctors earmolds ears Elish eyes face family chart family’s father felt fingers friends Galicia girls hair hands head heard hearing loss Herschel inside kiss kitchen knew letter lips listen living room looked Lucca Mama milk months Mordechai morning Moshe Moshe’s mother mother’s Nellie and Bayla Nellie’s night northampton nurses parents Pearl play processor Rayzl recessive gene rushed Shabbat shtetl sign language sister sitting sleep smell smile sophia and Juliet sophia’s hearing aids sound speak spoke spoken language stared stood stop string surgery talk Tasse tight tiny told took turned voice waiting walked wanted wasn’t watched week window wondered words worries
Bibliographic information
| Title | If a Tree Falls: A Family's Quest to Hear and Be Heard Jewish Women Writers Reuben/Rifkin Jewish Women Writers |
| Author | Jennifer Rosner |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2010 |
| ISBN | 1558616918, 9781558616912 |
| Length | 250 pages |
| Subjects | › Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs Family & Relationships / Children with Special Needs Health & Fitness / Hearing & Speech |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |