Delia Ray

My fifth-grade son read this book for school and recommended it to me. I'm so glad that he did. [Here Lies Linc] is a story about Linc, a boy who lives near Oakland Cemetery. Linc's mother is a history professor specializing in burial rights and customs at the University of Iowa. His father, who died suddenly when Linc was seven, is interred in a columbarium in Oakland Cemetery. Linc is no stranger to cemeteries, but as he starts his first year of junior high, he just wants to be a normal show more kid. That's why he can't believe that the first field trip of the year is going to take him to Oakland Cemetery on a tour led by his mom.

Linc manages to survive the field trip (despite a classic embarassing moment), but he and his friends aren't quite done with Oakland Cemetery. As they research some of the people buried there, Linc finds himself uncovering secrets that circle closer and closer to his own family. Ray keeps the pages turning by weaving together multiple storylines. Suspense and tension build as Linc navigates the challenges of the middle school and the mysteries waiting to be solved.

My son and I both loved this book. It is a well-paced story, gradually building to its final crescendo. Ray's characters feel real. Whether it is a middle school football star, a middle-aged widow, or an elderly neighbor, each voice is pitch perfect. This book would be perfect to recommend to any 4th-6th graders in your life, and you might even want to try it yourself! show less

Well, it was good in that there were a lot of deaf characters. More than two! It takes place in the 50's and we get a glimpse of how it was harder to be a deaf person if you were also black. Not that the main character is black, of course. She's a white hearing girl.And the main character is most of the problem with this book. She does some really uncaring, unthinking, wrong things and I have trouble understanding why she's doing them when she's doing them. She sneaks into a tenant's locked show more rock to rummage through and steal the woman's dead husband's clothes so she can pull a prank on her sister. And instead finds love letters from some other guy and takes one of those! And that's not the only wrong thing she does, but it's the one that rubbed me completely the wrong way. Skip Sunday school? Fine. Hum during church? I don't care. But violating someone's privacy like that? For no good reason?Almost wish the book had been about her father rather than her. He's a deaf minister who travels around all over the place to preach and minister in deaf churches all over the state and out of it. show less

My good friend, Phyllis, recommended this book to me. She knows my connections to sign language. It's one of the new books in our school library this year.

Here is a great moment in time captured by the granddaughter of two deaf grandparents. So, it's based on many real family stories of Delia. The story centers around Gussie who hates that her deaf parents aren't like everyone else in Birmingham. It all comes to a head one hot summer. It begins with her humming loudly during the worship show more service at the deaf church where her father is the minister - she and her two hearing sisters are the only ones that can hear her.

Her nasty and obstinate side continues through clandestine searches through the boarders rooms upstairs and continues to her skipping Sunday school at the hearing church downtown. All this naughtiness comes to a screeching halt when she is discovered. Her punishment is a very eye-opening experience which changes the way she sees her family and her life.

I worked with hearing impaired students for 2 years in Ohio and lived with a hearing impaired adult. Nancy taught me sign language and a whole lot more. I think she would really like this book.

Nancy grew up in the mid 70s when signing was still not really very accepted. She went through hearing schools and was proud of her lip reading abilities. That is until she went to Galludet College in Washington DC. It was there that she understood and embraced what it meant to be deaf. She completely changed her life. She became a teacher of deaf children - starting a preschool for deaf kids in Wooster, OH. That's where I came to know her. Today, Nancy is teaching deaf children in Belize.

This book made me think about what life was like for Nancy - growing up different. When I lived in Ohio, Nancy and I went out to eat one time and sat at the table signing back and forth to each other. I didn't really think about it until the waitress came to our table and didn't know what to do. She stood and stared and then bent over and very carefully and clearly asked us for our order. There was a moment when I had to decide what to do... I answered her, she blushed and moved away. In that moment - I understood what it really felt like to be different - to be deaf. show less

I think 4-6 grade will like this book a lot. Although the description lends you to believe the focus of story is a looming concern about a girls dad coming back from Afghanistan and her parents separating but that's really an undertone. The story is about Ren getting tangled up in a mystery that she helps to solve in an old run down school in the town of Fortune. She makes new friends, discovers ways to deal with real life problems and stress, and begins to feel important and needed. Loved it.