**As a boy, my father learned to speak with his hands. As a man, he
learned how to turn lead-type letters into words and sentences. My
father loved being a printer.
**
Each day in 1940s New York a young boy watches as his father goes to
work in the noisy newspaper printing factory. But the boy's father only
feels the machines' loud pounding and rumbling as vibrations through the
soles of his shoes. He is deaf. Although his father communicates with a
few other deaf printers through his hands, he feels largely ignored by
his hearing co-workers. But when a silent deadly fire erupts, it is up
to the father to warn and save his coworkers, even when they cannot hear
him over the printers.
Myron Uhlberg draws on his own experiences as the hearing son of deaf
parents to create this dramatic, evocative story that reflects a respect
for deaf culture and the unique gifts each individual possesses.
Historical details are deftly rendered and brought to life in Henri
Sørensen's extraordinary paintings that dramatize and illuminate the
powerful text.