I'd known that most Deaf kids went to Bridgewood, but I didn't expect to see so many. They'd be able to sign with one another all the time, like during class or PE games or in the hallways. At the lunch table."
Iris loves the ocean, whales and her grandparents who are deaf, as is Iris. When her family decides to make a move away from their oceanside home to Texas, life changes for her. The death of her beloved grandfather makes things even more difficult. There is so much he has taught her about electronics, old radios, and repairing them. It is a gift that gives her confidence when others simply characterize her as deaf.
She is the only deaf child in her middle school, and often feels lonely. When she sees a video about Blue 55, a whale whose song is at a frequency that no other whales can hear, Iris understands how he must feel. He is never invited to be part of a pod, since he cannot communicate. The same thing happens with Iris at school. Hearing Blue's tale, Iris decides that he needs her help and she sets out to create a song for him to hear.
Using the talent she has for repairing and hearing through the vibrations she feels on her radios, she asks members of the school band to create a song at the same frequency as Blue 55 sings. She makes a recording with hopes of making him feel less lonely in the ocean. She makes contact with scientists who are studying him and asks if she might use her recording to offer him her song of comfort and understanding. The scientists are interested in what she has done, but her parents refuse to make the trip to Alaska where he is being studied.
This is where Iris' grandmother, who is having great difficulty dealing with her own grief, steps in to help her granddaughter fulfill her dream. Without permission, the two fly to San Francisco where they board a cruise ship headed to Alaska. The trip provides great joy for both: Grandma in finding herself again, and Iris in trying to fulfill her quest to help Blue 55.
The action is fast paced, adventurous, and compelling. Iris is an admirable, intelligent, and caring girl who is determined to help the whale whose life parallels her own. Iris knows what loneliness is, and what it is like not to belong and be part of a community. Readers learn a lot about the strength and challenges of the Deaf in the book's pages.
Don't miss the information provided by the author in end matter. There she describes the real whale whose story impacts her writing, and offers further facts about whales and deafness.
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