Then Cece’s dream becomes a reality when her classmates realize that Cece can hear their teacher wherever she is in the school thanks to the microphone component of the phonic ear.Įl Deafo is autobiographical but stylized it draws on Cece Bell’s own personal experience of deafness, but the characters are portrayed as cartoony rabbit-like creatures, giving it a certain distance from real life. Trying to make sense of her difference, Cece conjures up the character of El Deafo, who turns her disability into a superpower. Cece desperately wants to be taken for normal, but the phonic ear constantly draws attention to her deafness, and makes friendship complicated. Trying to fit in at a new school is challenging enough, but Cece also has to wear the phonic ear, a large, two-part hearing aid that allows her to hear her teacher so that she doesn’t have to lip read all the time. But when first grade rolls around, it is time for Cece to go to her neighbourhood school, where she will be the only deaf student. The next year she starts kindergarten at a special school for deaf kids where she learns lip reading. When four-year-old Cece suddenly becomes violently ill, she wakes up in the hospital unable to hear, and has to be outfitted with a hearing aid. “Superheroes might be awesome, but they are also different! And being different feels a lot like being alone.”
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