A special book review
"Eddie the Elephant's Magical Ear" written by Suzanne Picerno touches upon a subject that you do not see many picture books address: hearing loss .
This is a nice story about an elephant named Eddie whose ear broke off and went missing. Eddie is so upset when this happens as he can no longer hear the sound of birds chirping or of leaves falling to the ground.
He goes searching for his ear and finally finds in near a hay stack and on top of a spider.
The spider offers to help sew the ear back on but this will not help Eddie get his hearing back.
But, the spider does have a surprise for him - near a tree there is a magical hearing aid!
When Eddie wears the hearing aid, he can hear again!
I applaud the author's efforts at addressing this topic. It provides representation of kids with hearing loss in a fun way, normalizes having hearing loss and using hearing aids, and helps start the conversation about this disability. It also makes readers aware of the emotions kids feel when dealing with this, or any, disability, and will encourage others to be kind and compassionate towards those who have any such disability.
Children will find the main character to be cute and will enjoy the rhymes.
Interesting fact shared by the author: 85% of hearing loss is caused by noise damage.
Eddie the Elephant can be purchased on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3UEhmCA
You can find the author on Twitter at @DeafGrl2 or on LinkedIn at www.LinkedIn.com/in/suzannepicerno
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