Jessi's Secret Language
Jessi’s Secret Language
Ghostwritten by Patsy Jensen
Hi, BSC Snarkers! I’m a long time lurker, first time snarker. That’s pretty much all I have to say before the cut (If I done fucked up on formatting, please let me know).
I’ve decided to tackle my least favorite book in the BSC lineup- Jessi Meets the Deaf One. I got fifteen copies of this book from well-meaning adults, because just like Jessi’s Black, I’m Deaf. Granted, I’m more “that deaf kid on Barney” (we even wore the same hearing aid) than Matt Braddock, but it’s still so condescending it pisses me off. This book is so horrible I’m having a hard time finding the appropriate picture to capture my feelings about this book.
Found it!
The Cover
The rage blackouts start at the cover caption. The cover art is ok, except for the fact Matt’s head seems too big for his shoulders, and Jessi’s sock blends in the grass so makes it look like her ankle rotted off. But the cherry on this shit sundae is the caption “Jessi’s learning a secret language for a very special child”, and I can’t decide what to tackle first- the patronizing tone in general, the fact someone at Scholastic thinks it’s ok to call a deaf kid “special”, or that everyone in this book treats ASL like it’s a secret handshake. Dear Ann, ASL is about as secret as Dawn’s secret passage. Sincerely, All ASL speakers.
I think I need a Valium, and it’s only the cover. God help me.
Chapter 1 (Here’s Jessi)
Jessi starts off the chapter bragging about how she’s super good at languages and became practically bilingual on a weeklong trip to Mexico. That’s actually a direct quote, sadly enough. This is only the first sentence, and already I ran into a solid wall of bullshit. My uncle speaks seven languages fluently, and he can speak five more conversationally, but he’s 45 and started when he was 10. And he spent a year or two in the country that spoke those languages- so he learned Mandarin by teaching in China, Spanish by living in Spain, et cetera, et cetera. Jessi hasn’t even entered the time warp yet, so Ann can’t even use that as an excuse. Why do BSC-ers have to be perfect in every way, outside of A Very Special Plot where one of the members does A Very Special Fuckup?
Fortunately for my sanity, there’s an Aw moment where Jessi talks about how her mom wakes up right when she does, and listens for Jessi going downstairs. It’s cute without any sappy. Unfortunately, this doesn’t last long, since Jessi then says, in a paragraph all by itself:
“My family is black.”
Jeez, Ann. I know some people are assholes about race relations, but this book was written well after the Civil Rights movement. I don’t think you’re going to get the monocle popping reaction you were expecting.
Then, directly after, there’s a whole hand wave of “You, the potentially racist audience member, could judge me because I’m black, so you better know up front!” Dude, everyone saw the cover. If everyone had an issue with the fact you’re black, they wouldn’t have gotten this far into the book. And you know what? Aside from the Oreo incident in SS # 2 (She never actually went head to head against The Racists in Keep Out Claudia), I can’t think of a single incident where Jessi confronted all this Stoneybrook Racism TM she keeps referring to. And the girls in SS #2 weren’t even from Stoneybrook. I can buy Jessi feeling uncomfortable in an all-white neighborhood, school, and mostly white town, but over the course of over a hundred books, it never changes. She makes a lot of friends (they suck, but she likes them), gets involved in lots of clubs and meets a lot of new families, and there’s never any adjustment where she realizes most of the Stoneybrookites don’t care if she’s black or not. Again, it’s fine to feel that way initially, or to occasionally come across some kind of problem that makes her feel insecure again, but everything is pretty smooth sailing for Jessi, for the most part. If she had ongoing, subtle problems over the course of the books, I’d feel more sympathetic to Jessi’s plight.
Not to mention, the very next paragraph is all like “My sister and I look exactly alike, except we’re not.” That’s so cringey, because it kind of implies that all black people look alike, even when they’re obviously different. I know sisters can look similar facially or in mannerisms, but a good author tries to capture those without saying “We look the same, except Becca’s eyes are lighter than mine, and her legs are like tree stumps compared to my loooooooooooong legs!” Subtlety, Ann has none. Maybe it’s because out of all the books Ann has written, co-written, or had ghost written, Jessi is the only significant black character I can think of. Maybe Mrs. Coleman from the LS series?
Yay- Jessi mentions Keisha, her cousin/BFF, and that always cheered me up as a kid because I was (and still am) best friends with my cousins, so REPRESENT, Jessi. Jessi says Stoneybrook got better ever since she found Mallory. Girl, you’re in trouble if the best thing about Stoneybrook is Mallory.
Uh oh, she mentions the BSC with a “But I’m getting ahead of myself, so I’ll back up.” Please don’t. Unless she means “back up and run it over”. I really don’t want a chapter two in chapter one. Thankfully, we’re spared, because now there’s actual dialogue and interaction with the people Jessi introduced us to. Jessi’s got a looooooooong day ahead of her- school, ballet, and the all-important Cult of BSC with Leader K. Ron. She’s hoping for a part in Coppelia, which she shouldn’t get but does, and the chapter closes with the sisters running out the door for their busy days.
Chapter 2 (We meet again, cult!)
Holy shit! Jessi’s late for a BSC meeting! She’s going to get… the LOOK.
And maybe get run out of Paris.
It’s ok, though, because this is before Kristy morphed into Kristy Jong Il, and she actually says “It’s ok” with a smile. Sorry, I have to run back to the used bookstore to see if my copy is defective. It’s not. I checked all ten copies of Jessi’s Secret Language, and they’re all the same. However, there’s a faint outline of Future K.Ron- “Mallory and I don’t want to upset anyone. Especially Kristy.” Then, in a separate paragraph, we get a lone sentence just like the “My family is black” line for extra extra emphasis. Drumroll, please!
“Kristy is the President of the club.”
That sounds so ominous, like “Kristy is the head of the Party” or “Kristy is our Leader! We love the Leader!” I’m a little freaked out now, so let’s skim! The Cult was formed in Year One, otherwise known as sometime in the late 80’s. In Year One, Our Leader had a masterstroke- the Great Idea! The Great Idea is the origin of the grand BSC. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, cult members come to the Epicenter, also known as Claudia’s Room, where Meetings are conducted. The Meeting always begins with a chant (“Hail K.Ron”, or for variety “Nah nan a nan a, Leader!”), eating of the Junk Food (contrary to popular belief, the BSC serum is hidden in Claudia’s candy, not the Kool Aid. Dawn is injected with horse tranquillizers full of it, which is why we Suppressives see her as unusually unbalanced.) The Kool Aid is only provided once a month, for a stronger booster dose of the Serum.
Club members, club members. I can’t think of anything new to say about them, because there’s never anything new to say about them. Kristy, we know. Claudia does her hair like a half dead ran over porcupine, and dresses like a drunk 45 year old barfly. Jessi actually says “Claudia wears stuff our mothers won’t let us wear until we’re forty five, if then.” Creepily, Kristy would “kill for” Claudia’s skin. O_o.
Claudia may want to invest in some night vision goggles.
Mary Anne has a boyfriend, which Claudia says is “hard on Kristy.” I’ll bet it is. Guess Kristy’s not into three ways. Stacey’s not in this book, but we still have to read a paragraph about Our Beloved Insulin Spike (Unrelated to Mallory’s alter ego, Valerie Spike). Dawn has loooooooooooong hair , just like Jessi has loooooooooooooooooooong legs, and Jessi says the secret code that will blow up Stoneybrook. No, not “That Italian family next door sure is quiet,” but a sentence that probably cause the apocalypse.
“I like Dawn a lot.”
No, it’s not in its own paragraph, but the lack of sarcasm is fatal in that sentence and needs to be contained. No, Jessi. Nobody likes Dawn. Even Mary Anne wishes she would choke on an alfalfa sprout. Her shining moment was when she almost got impaled by a cow shaped mailbox.
Huh, I’m forgetting someone. No, not Shannon the invisible girl, or even Logan the cat queen. Huh. Must be Mallory. What’s there to say about Mallory? She comes from a large family that’s in close contact with wild animals (by which I mean the triplets), has red hair, and a big nose. That sounds familiar. I got it!
Indeed.
The rest of the chapter unfolds normally except for Dawn telling everyone that if you touch your nose to your tongue, you’ll get giant boobs. Kristy shrieks that she can do it. Jessi is a bit confused. Duh, Jessi, Kristy wants to up her game if she wants to steal Mary Anne back from Logan, that whore.
Next up, we get the Very Special Sitting job, with the Very Special Sitting Charge. He speaks Ameslan, which I guess is American Sign Language? I always thought it was ASL. I wouldn’t know, because I wear a hearing aid and the only languages I can speak are English and French. A quick Googling reveals Ameslan is a real term. Point for Ann. Vintage kitten pictures all around! For the snarkers, not Ann. You get nothing, Ann.
Chapter 3 (Madame Noelle and the Stupid Typed Out Accent)
Wait, what? We’re in ballet class? You mean I don’t have to read about a deaf child being patronized? THANK YOU, GOD. Oh, wait, ballet class. That means I have to read about Jessi’s super special ballet skillz. Shit.
Ann must have went out for body shots with her editor, because this is the only way to explain chapter three’s opening. It starts with some lady named Mademoiselle Jones, then Jessi blathers on about Madame Noelle and her big stick and Mme. Jones is never heard from again. Who was she? Where did she go? More importantly, did she escape the time warp? I guess the body shots were some strong.
Jessi talks about how she chips in for her own toe shoes, and how committed she is to dance. As a former ballet dancer myself, I call all kinds of bullshit.
One. Toe shoes are expensive. Like, you could support a drug habit on the amount of money Jessi’s parents are dropping on toe shoes (she claims they buy them constantly). There is no way her two cents an hour babysitting jobs even cover the lambs wool you need for the toes. Hell, she probably can’t even pay for the rubber toe covers. Secondly, there is no way, at age 11, you are dancing on pointe so much that you wear through pairs constantly. I remember I thought I was hot shit when I got my first pair of toe shoes at 11. I went to ballet class three times a week, and toe shoes stayed in their bag for most of the class. Why? Because toe shoes are more uncomfortable than anything worn by Lady Gaga, and they are hard to even walk in without going on pointe. Once you go on pointe, you can kiss nice feet goodbye. Ballet dancers have bloody toes, because human beings aren’t really supposed to put all their weight on their toes for extended periods of time. Especially when they're 11.
Jessi pisses and moans about the other girls in the class. We get treated to another one sentence paragraph (Jessi likes these the same way Ellen Miles likes parenthesis).
“They do not like me.” (Unspoken- “Because I’m black”)
Well, Jessi, I don't like you either. She’s such a braggy little hosebeast about how she’s the best in the class and how she “took the special spots away from Hilary and Katie Beth”. Bitch. She whines more in another one sentence paragraph (MAKE. IT. STOP. It’s like reading a telegram, you know, when every sentence ends in STOP STOP) that nobody wants to hold her hand. She pats herself on the back for being so mature and above it all. Jessi, you are about as mature as Karen right now. You know what else you have in common? You both get on my last nerve, not that I had many to begin with when I started this book.
Jessi gets no townspeople parts (Ha! Ha), and freaks that they don’t want her because there weren't any black people in Europe hundreds of years ago. Actually, Jessi, there were. And no, they weren't all slaves. Scotland, for instance, had black kings. Secondly, color blind casting was pretty well established, even in the eighties. This whole chapter is full of things Ann knows nothing about. If I were being brutally honest, the things Ann doesn’t know could fill a book. Or 131 books, with 145 pages each.
But of course Jessi gets the lead. Yay for her. Some of the other girls congratulate her, which kind of blows the theory that nobody in her class likes her. Hilary and Katie Beth, clearly sick of Jessi being so up herself, call her out on pretending to be nice. Katie Beth shoots down Jessi’s compliment, and the two bitch about her behind her back but in earshot. Jessi runs off to have a sad.
Chapter 4
Jessi’s mom is actually comforting and sweet to Jessi about the Ballet Bitches, and takes time to sit and talk with Jessi and reassures her that she’s a good dancer. The Ramsey parents were solid contenders for the best parents in the ‘Brook, at least before they left Jessi in charge of a baby and an eight year old for three days. Nice to see the rational Ramseys make an appearance.
And then Jessi switches topics to info dump all over the audience about what ASL is. Deaf people can’t hear! They need a language you can see, not hear! Careful, Jessi, if you dumb it down any more even Claudia will get it.
Now it’s time for the special babysitting job. Oh, joy. Jessi runs over to the Braddock house, and Haley answers the door.
Jessi gets her creep on by describing Haley as having “brown eyes framed with luscious dark lashes” and a “wide, charming grin”. This totally sounds like something out of a supermarket romance novel.
Did I say romance novel? I meant horror.
Mrs. Braddock is friendly enough, and unlike some of the other good parents of Stoneybrook, she doesn’t immediately dump her children on to an eleven year old stranger. In fact, she even gives a succinct explanation about Matt’s particular hearing loss, and how ASL works.
The chapter would be cute and pleasant enough if Jessi didn’t take a big steaming judgey dump all over it. She starts off by asking “How come everyone wants deaf people to speak and read lips?”
Jessi, a.) There’s a lot more hearing and verbal people in the world than there are people who use ASL, so it’s more convenient for hearing and non-hearing people to speak a common language, b.) most people who are deaf aren’t “completely” deaf and either retain some hearing, were born hearing (and then progressively lost it), or find a hearing unit that works for them. Being deaf comes in more flavors than Baskin Robbins ice cream. There’s my dad, who wears “in the ear” hearing aids, my grandma who’s “old people deaf”, and just yells her head off because she bought her hearing aid off QVC, and me. I don’t have ears, so in the ear hearing aids are out, and I wear bone conducting hearing aids. My first hearing aid was a headband, which was an epic pain in the ass, and now I wear a BAHA (not a Cochlear, which people seem to think is interchangeable, and they really aren’t), which clips onto a screw embedded in my skull. Basically, I hear through my skull bones, and circumvent my ear canal altogether. Even without my hearing aid on, I can still hear, although everything sounds really quiet, like if you turn the volume down to about five on your TV. I personally want to speak in “standard” English, because it’s a lot easier on me and everyone I know. The way Jessi asks the question just reeks of “Oh, those poor deaf people, bless their little hearts.” I’m frankly shocked that Ann actually worked with special needs children ever.
Granted, some of my hate toward this book is more due to the fact that every adult that vaguely knew me would try to give me this book and I was like “Bitch, this isn’t even what my disability is like.”
Mrs. Braddock runs through the words Matt uses the most often, and if Jessi were babysitting me, she’d be so fucked because my top ten words are:
Jessi finally realizes that sign language is a little more complicated than the Bizzer sign or pig Latin- it’s got several thousand words. Oh noes.
After Mrs. Braddock gives Jessi a full tutorial, she tells Jessi to get to know the kids better while she cooks dinner. I guess Mrs. Braddock hasn’t been invited to Sharon’s epic pot parties yet.
Jessi acts like a total shit by talking to Haley and not addressing Matt at all. Now, I understand that it’s a little uncomfortable trying to talk to someone who exclusively signs when all you know is a few words in sign. In fact, I ran into this situation when I interviewed at RPI- the admissions officer only signed, and had an interpreter, but I at least shook the man’s hand and made eye contact with him when I said hello. Jessi hasn’t addressed even a perfunctory greeting at Matt, even in verbal English. She could even *gasp* try out some of that sign language Mrs. B taught her.
She adds insult to injury by saying, “He can read?” when Haley explains he just wants to curl up with a book. Urge. To. Kill. Rising. Here, Jessi, have a Breaking Bad GIF from one Jesse to another.
Of course, Ann makes sure to point out that it’s a picture book Matt wants to read. Hey. Ann. Over here.
I… a PICTURE BOOK? He’s SEVEN. He’s been in school since he was two. Stone deaf people can read, ANN. Especially since sign language is a hard language to learn, it’s useful to have another way to bridge the gap with reading and writing so you can talk with the wider world. Given how Ann gives the special snowflake to cancer patients and KAREN, of all people, would it kill her to make it a chapter book or something?
Jessi also bitches that she can’t get to know Matt if he’s reading. I, for one, find it hilarious that a children’s book author constantly disses kids who like to read. That’s like a plastic surgeon making fun of Michael Jackson. Then there’s this “hey, this kid isn’t interested in talking to me right now, how can I brag to my asshole friends what a superior babysitter/linguist I am?” attitude that pisses me off to no end.
Haley is rightfully a little ticked that Jessi is focusing on her brother and pretty much ignoring her. After all, she’s the one with the luscious lashes!
Jessi leaves, and has a lot of questions about ASL as a language, most of which are insightful- like “how do you make a plural word?” and “what’s the sign for an, the, or a?” I can’t answer the first question, but according to that episode of Forensic Files I watched, ASL is to the point and not really like “spoken” English. Though we all know how much the BSC hates things to be to the point.
Up next: Mary Anne puts the ho in hosebeast by shitting all over a four year old, Haley acts even worse, and Jessi is completely clueless.
That’s a wrap! I’ll have the next set of chapters up soon. I know I’m new and late to the party, but I’ve been dying to rip into this book since I saw it. Thanks for reading! (ETA-I fixed the cut, downsized the images, and fixed a lot of things that were bugging me.)
Ghostwritten by Patsy Jensen
Hi, BSC Snarkers! I’m a long time lurker, first time snarker. That’s pretty much all I have to say before the cut (If I done fucked up on formatting, please let me know).
I’ve decided to tackle my least favorite book in the BSC lineup- Jessi Meets the Deaf One. I got fifteen copies of this book from well-meaning adults, because just like Jessi’s Black, I’m Deaf. Granted, I’m more “that deaf kid on Barney” (we even wore the same hearing aid) than Matt Braddock, but it’s still so condescending it pisses me off. This book is so horrible I’m having a hard time finding the appropriate picture to capture my feelings about this book.
Found it!
The Cover
The rage blackouts start at the cover caption. The cover art is ok, except for the fact Matt’s head seems too big for his shoulders, and Jessi’s sock blends in the grass so makes it look like her ankle rotted off. But the cherry on this shit sundae is the caption “Jessi’s learning a secret language for a very special child”, and I can’t decide what to tackle first- the patronizing tone in general, the fact someone at Scholastic thinks it’s ok to call a deaf kid “special”, or that everyone in this book treats ASL like it’s a secret handshake. Dear Ann, ASL is about as secret as Dawn’s secret passage. Sincerely, All ASL speakers.
I think I need a Valium, and it’s only the cover. God help me.
Chapter 1 (Here’s Jessi)
Jessi starts off the chapter bragging about how she’s super good at languages and became practically bilingual on a weeklong trip to Mexico. That’s actually a direct quote, sadly enough. This is only the first sentence, and already I ran into a solid wall of bullshit. My uncle speaks seven languages fluently, and he can speak five more conversationally, but he’s 45 and started when he was 10. And he spent a year or two in the country that spoke those languages- so he learned Mandarin by teaching in China, Spanish by living in Spain, et cetera, et cetera. Jessi hasn’t even entered the time warp yet, so Ann can’t even use that as an excuse. Why do BSC-ers have to be perfect in every way, outside of A Very Special Plot where one of the members does A Very Special Fuckup?
Fortunately for my sanity, there’s an Aw moment where Jessi talks about how her mom wakes up right when she does, and listens for Jessi going downstairs. It’s cute without any sappy. Unfortunately, this doesn’t last long, since Jessi then says, in a paragraph all by itself:
“My family is black.”
Jeez, Ann. I know some people are assholes about race relations, but this book was written well after the Civil Rights movement. I don’t think you’re going to get the monocle popping reaction you were expecting.
Then, directly after, there’s a whole hand wave of “You, the potentially racist audience member, could judge me because I’m black, so you better know up front!” Dude, everyone saw the cover. If everyone had an issue with the fact you’re black, they wouldn’t have gotten this far into the book. And you know what? Aside from the Oreo incident in SS # 2 (She never actually went head to head against The Racists in Keep Out Claudia), I can’t think of a single incident where Jessi confronted all this Stoneybrook Racism TM she keeps referring to. And the girls in SS #2 weren’t even from Stoneybrook. I can buy Jessi feeling uncomfortable in an all-white neighborhood, school, and mostly white town, but over the course of over a hundred books, it never changes. She makes a lot of friends (they suck, but she likes them), gets involved in lots of clubs and meets a lot of new families, and there’s never any adjustment where she realizes most of the Stoneybrookites don’t care if she’s black or not. Again, it’s fine to feel that way initially, or to occasionally come across some kind of problem that makes her feel insecure again, but everything is pretty smooth sailing for Jessi, for the most part. If she had ongoing, subtle problems over the course of the books, I’d feel more sympathetic to Jessi’s plight.
Not to mention, the very next paragraph is all like “My sister and I look exactly alike, except we’re not.” That’s so cringey, because it kind of implies that all black people look alike, even when they’re obviously different. I know sisters can look similar facially or in mannerisms, but a good author tries to capture those without saying “We look the same, except Becca’s eyes are lighter than mine, and her legs are like tree stumps compared to my loooooooooooong legs!” Subtlety, Ann has none. Maybe it’s because out of all the books Ann has written, co-written, or had ghost written, Jessi is the only significant black character I can think of. Maybe Mrs. Coleman from the LS series?
Yay- Jessi mentions Keisha, her cousin/BFF, and that always cheered me up as a kid because I was (and still am) best friends with my cousins, so REPRESENT, Jessi. Jessi says Stoneybrook got better ever since she found Mallory. Girl, you’re in trouble if the best thing about Stoneybrook is Mallory.
Uh oh, she mentions the BSC with a “But I’m getting ahead of myself, so I’ll back up.” Please don’t. Unless she means “back up and run it over”. I really don’t want a chapter two in chapter one. Thankfully, we’re spared, because now there’s actual dialogue and interaction with the people Jessi introduced us to. Jessi’s got a looooooooong day ahead of her- school, ballet, and the all-important Cult of BSC with Leader K. Ron. She’s hoping for a part in Coppelia, which she shouldn’t get but does, and the chapter closes with the sisters running out the door for their busy days.
Chapter 2 (We meet again, cult!)
Holy shit! Jessi’s late for a BSC meeting! She’s going to get… the LOOK.
And maybe get run out of Paris.
It’s ok, though, because this is before Kristy morphed into Kristy Jong Il, and she actually says “It’s ok” with a smile. Sorry, I have to run back to the used bookstore to see if my copy is defective. It’s not. I checked all ten copies of Jessi’s Secret Language, and they’re all the same. However, there’s a faint outline of Future K.Ron- “Mallory and I don’t want to upset anyone. Especially Kristy.” Then, in a separate paragraph, we get a lone sentence just like the “My family is black” line for extra extra emphasis. Drumroll, please!
“Kristy is the President of the club.”
That sounds so ominous, like “Kristy is the head of the Party” or “Kristy is our Leader! We love the Leader!” I’m a little freaked out now, so let’s skim! The Cult was formed in Year One, otherwise known as sometime in the late 80’s. In Year One, Our Leader had a masterstroke- the Great Idea! The Great Idea is the origin of the grand BSC. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, cult members come to the Epicenter, also known as Claudia’s Room, where Meetings are conducted. The Meeting always begins with a chant (“Hail K.Ron”, or for variety “Nah nan a nan a, Leader!”), eating of the Junk Food (contrary to popular belief, the BSC serum is hidden in Claudia’s candy, not the Kool Aid. Dawn is injected with horse tranquillizers full of it, which is why we Suppressives see her as unusually unbalanced.) The Kool Aid is only provided once a month, for a stronger booster dose of the Serum.
Club members, club members. I can’t think of anything new to say about them, because there’s never anything new to say about them. Kristy, we know. Claudia does her hair like a half dead ran over porcupine, and dresses like a drunk 45 year old barfly. Jessi actually says “Claudia wears stuff our mothers won’t let us wear until we’re forty five, if then.” Creepily, Kristy would “kill for” Claudia’s skin. O_o.
Claudia may want to invest in some night vision goggles.
Mary Anne has a boyfriend, which Claudia says is “hard on Kristy.” I’ll bet it is. Guess Kristy’s not into three ways. Stacey’s not in this book, but we still have to read a paragraph about Our Beloved Insulin Spike (Unrelated to Mallory’s alter ego, Valerie Spike). Dawn has loooooooooooong hair , just like Jessi has loooooooooooooooooooong legs, and Jessi says the secret code that will blow up Stoneybrook. No, not “That Italian family next door sure is quiet,” but a sentence that probably cause the apocalypse.
“I like Dawn a lot.”
No, it’s not in its own paragraph, but the lack of sarcasm is fatal in that sentence and needs to be contained. No, Jessi. Nobody likes Dawn. Even Mary Anne wishes she would choke on an alfalfa sprout. Her shining moment was when she almost got impaled by a cow shaped mailbox.
Huh, I’m forgetting someone. No, not Shannon the invisible girl, or even Logan the cat queen. Huh. Must be Mallory. What’s there to say about Mallory? She comes from a large family that’s in close contact with wild animals (by which I mean the triplets), has red hair, and a big nose. That sounds familiar. I got it!
Indeed.
The rest of the chapter unfolds normally except for Dawn telling everyone that if you touch your nose to your tongue, you’ll get giant boobs. Kristy shrieks that she can do it. Jessi is a bit confused. Duh, Jessi, Kristy wants to up her game if she wants to steal Mary Anne back from Logan, that whore.
Next up, we get the Very Special Sitting job, with the Very Special Sitting Charge. He speaks Ameslan, which I guess is American Sign Language? I always thought it was ASL. I wouldn’t know, because I wear a hearing aid and the only languages I can speak are English and French. A quick Googling reveals Ameslan is a real term. Point for Ann. Vintage kitten pictures all around! For the snarkers, not Ann. You get nothing, Ann.
Chapter 3 (Madame Noelle and the Stupid Typed Out Accent)
Wait, what? We’re in ballet class? You mean I don’t have to read about a deaf child being patronized? THANK YOU, GOD. Oh, wait, ballet class. That means I have to read about Jessi’s super special ballet skillz. Shit.
Ann must have went out for body shots with her editor, because this is the only way to explain chapter three’s opening. It starts with some lady named Mademoiselle Jones, then Jessi blathers on about Madame Noelle and her big stick and Mme. Jones is never heard from again. Who was she? Where did she go? More importantly, did she escape the time warp? I guess the body shots were some strong.
Jessi talks about how she chips in for her own toe shoes, and how committed she is to dance. As a former ballet dancer myself, I call all kinds of bullshit.
One. Toe shoes are expensive. Like, you could support a drug habit on the amount of money Jessi’s parents are dropping on toe shoes (she claims they buy them constantly). There is no way her two cents an hour babysitting jobs even cover the lambs wool you need for the toes. Hell, she probably can’t even pay for the rubber toe covers. Secondly, there is no way, at age 11, you are dancing on pointe so much that you wear through pairs constantly. I remember I thought I was hot shit when I got my first pair of toe shoes at 11. I went to ballet class three times a week, and toe shoes stayed in their bag for most of the class. Why? Because toe shoes are more uncomfortable than anything worn by Lady Gaga, and they are hard to even walk in without going on pointe. Once you go on pointe, you can kiss nice feet goodbye. Ballet dancers have bloody toes, because human beings aren’t really supposed to put all their weight on their toes for extended periods of time. Especially when they're 11.
Jessi pisses and moans about the other girls in the class. We get treated to another one sentence paragraph (Jessi likes these the same way Ellen Miles likes parenthesis).
“They do not like me.” (Unspoken- “Because I’m black”)
Well, Jessi, I don't like you either. She’s such a braggy little hosebeast about how she’s the best in the class and how she “took the special spots away from Hilary and Katie Beth”. Bitch. She whines more in another one sentence paragraph (MAKE. IT. STOP. It’s like reading a telegram, you know, when every sentence ends in STOP STOP) that nobody wants to hold her hand. She pats herself on the back for being so mature and above it all. Jessi, you are about as mature as Karen right now. You know what else you have in common? You both get on my last nerve, not that I had many to begin with when I started this book.
Jessi gets no townspeople parts (Ha! Ha), and freaks that they don’t want her because there weren't any black people in Europe hundreds of years ago. Actually, Jessi, there were. And no, they weren't all slaves. Scotland, for instance, had black kings. Secondly, color blind casting was pretty well established, even in the eighties. This whole chapter is full of things Ann knows nothing about. If I were being brutally honest, the things Ann doesn’t know could fill a book. Or 131 books, with 145 pages each.
But of course Jessi gets the lead. Yay for her. Some of the other girls congratulate her, which kind of blows the theory that nobody in her class likes her. Hilary and Katie Beth, clearly sick of Jessi being so up herself, call her out on pretending to be nice. Katie Beth shoots down Jessi’s compliment, and the two bitch about her behind her back but in earshot. Jessi runs off to have a sad.
Chapter 4
Jessi’s mom is actually comforting and sweet to Jessi about the Ballet Bitches, and takes time to sit and talk with Jessi and reassures her that she’s a good dancer. The Ramsey parents were solid contenders for the best parents in the ‘Brook, at least before they left Jessi in charge of a baby and an eight year old for three days. Nice to see the rational Ramseys make an appearance.
And then Jessi switches topics to info dump all over the audience about what ASL is. Deaf people can’t hear! They need a language you can see, not hear! Careful, Jessi, if you dumb it down any more even Claudia will get it.
Now it’s time for the special babysitting job. Oh, joy. Jessi runs over to the Braddock house, and Haley answers the door.
Jessi gets her creep on by describing Haley as having “brown eyes framed with luscious dark lashes” and a “wide, charming grin”. This totally sounds like something out of a supermarket romance novel.
Did I say romance novel? I meant horror.
Mrs. Braddock is friendly enough, and unlike some of the other good parents of Stoneybrook, she doesn’t immediately dump her children on to an eleven year old stranger. In fact, she even gives a succinct explanation about Matt’s particular hearing loss, and how ASL works.
The chapter would be cute and pleasant enough if Jessi didn’t take a big steaming judgey dump all over it. She starts off by asking “How come everyone wants deaf people to speak and read lips?”
Jessi, a.) There’s a lot more hearing and verbal people in the world than there are people who use ASL, so it’s more convenient for hearing and non-hearing people to speak a common language, b.) most people who are deaf aren’t “completely” deaf and either retain some hearing, were born hearing (and then progressively lost it), or find a hearing unit that works for them. Being deaf comes in more flavors than Baskin Robbins ice cream. There’s my dad, who wears “in the ear” hearing aids, my grandma who’s “old people deaf”, and just yells her head off because she bought her hearing aid off QVC, and me. I don’t have ears, so in the ear hearing aids are out, and I wear bone conducting hearing aids. My first hearing aid was a headband, which was an epic pain in the ass, and now I wear a BAHA (not a Cochlear, which people seem to think is interchangeable, and they really aren’t), which clips onto a screw embedded in my skull. Basically, I hear through my skull bones, and circumvent my ear canal altogether. Even without my hearing aid on, I can still hear, although everything sounds really quiet, like if you turn the volume down to about five on your TV. I personally want to speak in “standard” English, because it’s a lot easier on me and everyone I know. The way Jessi asks the question just reeks of “Oh, those poor deaf people, bless their little hearts.” I’m frankly shocked that Ann actually worked with special needs children ever.
Granted, some of my hate toward this book is more due to the fact that every adult that vaguely knew me would try to give me this book and I was like “Bitch, this isn’t even what my disability is like.”
Mrs. Braddock runs through the words Matt uses the most often, and if Jessi were babysitting me, she’d be so fucked because my top ten words are:
Jessi finally realizes that sign language is a little more complicated than the Bizzer sign or pig Latin- it’s got several thousand words. Oh noes.
After Mrs. Braddock gives Jessi a full tutorial, she tells Jessi to get to know the kids better while she cooks dinner. I guess Mrs. Braddock hasn’t been invited to Sharon’s epic pot parties yet.
Jessi acts like a total shit by talking to Haley and not addressing Matt at all. Now, I understand that it’s a little uncomfortable trying to talk to someone who exclusively signs when all you know is a few words in sign. In fact, I ran into this situation when I interviewed at RPI- the admissions officer only signed, and had an interpreter, but I at least shook the man’s hand and made eye contact with him when I said hello. Jessi hasn’t addressed even a perfunctory greeting at Matt, even in verbal English. She could even *gasp* try out some of that sign language Mrs. B taught her.
She adds insult to injury by saying, “He can read?” when Haley explains he just wants to curl up with a book. Urge. To. Kill. Rising. Here, Jessi, have a Breaking Bad GIF from one Jesse to another.
Of course, Ann makes sure to point out that it’s a picture book Matt wants to read. Hey. Ann. Over here.
I… a PICTURE BOOK? He’s SEVEN. He’s been in school since he was two. Stone deaf people can read, ANN. Especially since sign language is a hard language to learn, it’s useful to have another way to bridge the gap with reading and writing so you can talk with the wider world. Given how Ann gives the special snowflake to cancer patients and KAREN, of all people, would it kill her to make it a chapter book or something?
Jessi also bitches that she can’t get to know Matt if he’s reading. I, for one, find it hilarious that a children’s book author constantly disses kids who like to read. That’s like a plastic surgeon making fun of Michael Jackson. Then there’s this “hey, this kid isn’t interested in talking to me right now, how can I brag to my asshole friends what a superior babysitter/linguist I am?” attitude that pisses me off to no end.
Haley is rightfully a little ticked that Jessi is focusing on her brother and pretty much ignoring her. After all, she’s the one with the luscious lashes!
Jessi leaves, and has a lot of questions about ASL as a language, most of which are insightful- like “how do you make a plural word?” and “what’s the sign for an, the, or a?” I can’t answer the first question, but according to that episode of Forensic Files I watched, ASL is to the point and not really like “spoken” English. Though we all know how much the BSC hates things to be to the point.
Up next: Mary Anne puts the ho in hosebeast by shitting all over a four year old, Haley acts even worse, and Jessi is completely clueless.
That’s a wrap! I’ll have the next set of chapters up soon. I know I’m new and late to the party, but I’ve been dying to rip into this book since I saw it. Thanks for reading! (ETA-I fixed the cut, downsized the images, and fixed a lot of things that were bugging me.)