小黄片视频

12 Fast Facts 小黄片视频 Cece Bell

Although the main character in the graphic novel El Deafo is a cartoon rabbit with long ears and a bob haircut, the book is really a condensed account of Cece Bell鈥檚 experience of growing up hearing impaired. Cece Bell as a child

Bell, who is a 1998 graduate of the Master of Arts program at 小黄片视频鈥檚 School of Visual Communication Design, has written and illustrated more than a dozen children鈥檚 books. 

Her most personal book, El Deafo (Amulet Books, 2014), is a New York Times best seller and won a Newbery Honor Award from the American Library Association in February 2015. It鈥檚 only the second graphic novel to receive such an honor. 

Here are a dozen other facts about Cece Bell:

1. She lost most of her hearing at age four and a half after contracting meningitis. Her parents didn鈥檛 realize she couldn鈥檛 hear until several days after she returned home from the hospital.

2. She鈥檚 an excellent lip reader. (As long as you don鈥檛 have a mustache or beard.) Since she already had four years of hearing and had developed speech, her parents decided not to enroll her in schools for the deaf or sign language. 

3. It took her years before she felt ready to write about her childhood. 鈥淚 finally came to a place in my life when I could say, 鈥極kay, I鈥檓 deaf!鈥 I had tried to keep it hidden for so long. . . . My hearing loss was quite traumatic and adjusting to the hearing aid in school caused me so much embarrassment that the memories and feelings from that period of my life were easy to get to.鈥 

4. The Phonic Ear she wore as a child isn鈥檛 as large as it appears in her drawings. It鈥檚 actually 3 inches wide x 4 inches tall, but to young Cece, who wore it strapped on her chest (hid under the bib of her overalls), it felt huge. (See image above.)

5. She was aiming for emotional truth over literal truth. 鈥淚 wanted to show readers how it felt to be the only deaf kid in the school, and what it sounded like, too. I also wanted to tell an entertaining story. So I had to slightly readjust my personal time line and make a few composites of the people I knew. Otherwise it would have been confusing and you鈥檇 be asleep by page 21.鈥 

6. She had never written a graphic novel before. She worked on it for about five years, along with other projects. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know how graphic novelists make more than one in their lifetime!鈥 The comic-book approach helped her tell the story. In several scenes a character鈥檚 speech balloon is empty or filled with gibberish. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the perfect visual way to show how a hard-of-hearing or deaf person might or might not be hearing.鈥

7. She鈥檚 not really a rabbit. In El Deafo, she made her characters rabbits because they have giant ears and are good at hearing. 鈥淚t was sort of a visual metaphor to show how I was feeling . . . like the one rabbit whose big ears didn鈥檛 work. So that鈥檚 why everyone became a rabbit. And rabbits are cute.鈥

8. El Deafo was her nickname for herself. She didn鈥檛 share it with anyone, though, during her younger years. Someone had told her about an ABC Afterschool Special episode in which one kid calls a deaf kid 鈥淒eafo.鈥 鈥淚 thought it was funny at first. Then it made me mad. I thought: I鈥檒l call myself that so if anyone says it to me, I鈥檒l be ready! It did help.鈥

9. Her graphic memoir has resonated with many hearing-impaired children and adults. As she notes in the book鈥檚 afterword, there鈥檚 a spectrum of deafness and every deaf person鈥檚 experience and approach is different. Still, she says, 鈥淥ne of the biggest thrills for me since the book came out has been finding folks who are a lot like me. It鈥檚 the best.鈥 

10. She鈥檚 married to another successful children鈥檚 book author. She met her future husband, Tom Angleberger 鈥 whose books include the Origami Yoda series (Harry N. Abrams) and Crankee Doodle (Clarion Books, 2013), illustrated by Cece Bell 鈥 at the College of William and Mary, where they both majored in art. They live in Virginia and have two sons.

11. She named one of her characters after her teacher and mentor at 小黄片视频. The main character, Jerry Bee, in her book Bee-Wigged (Candlewick Press, 2008) was named after Jerry Kalback, Professor Emeritus of Visual Communication Design. 鈥淚t鈥檚 still my favorite of all the books I鈥檝e done.鈥 She read from it when she returned to the Kent Campus in . 

12. Her most recent book is about a donkey and a yam. 鈥淚t鈥檚 called I Yam a Donkey (Clarion Books, 2015), and the premise is: A donkey and a yam get into a big argument about grammar.
There ya go. In some ways, it鈥檚 closer to how I actually am as a person today: playing for the yuk-yuks, not worrying about the deafness so much.鈥

Cece Bell's El Deafo

Cece Bell's El Deafo

El Deafo written and illustrated by Cece Bell, Copyright 2014. Used by permission of Amulet Books, an imprint of Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York. All rights reserved.
Learn even more at .

When Cece Bell returned to campus in March 2009 to teach a workshop to students interested in illustration, she read from Bee-Wigged

 

 

Cece Bell's reaction video to winning the Newbery Honor Award: