I have written and illustrated a children's book featuring a central character that has a hearing loss and wears hearing aids. There is very little material available in the form of books, toys or characters that have disabled
children as characters. The story revolves around the Sam, who is hearing impaired and his hearing friend Elly. They embark on a magical journey to a busy city, under the sea, a jungle etc. In each spread, and each new destination, the characters demonstrate a particular social situation that
arises with hearing impaired kids. In the city, there is too much background noise for Sam's hearing aids, and in the jungle Sam doesn't hear Elly because she is facing away from him when speaking. These situations are displayed through the position of the characters and a simple storyline.
I collaged the illustrations using fabrics and coloured/textured papers. This aims to reframe the way readers will see children with hearing loss and the possible miscommunications that can arise through raising awareness and familiarity or these situations. I reused a huge amount of fabric scraps, old leather from bags and jackets, old jeans and other items to create the collages. I bound the book in a concertina form for my presentation, but I am in the process of reprinting the book to be bound in a traditional book form, as I feel it would be better suited to exhibit that
way.