Secondary Deaf Character in The Aldo Zelnick Comic Novel Series

Dumbstruck (The Aldo Zelnick Comic Novel Series) by Karla Oceanak
Reading level: Ages 9-12
Hardcover: 160 pages
Publisher: Bailiwick Press (October 1, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1934649163

Product Description
Ten-year-old Aldo lives with his family in Colorado. He's not athletic like his older brother; he's not a rock hound like his best friend; and he is none too fond of the outdoors—but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a passion. Aldo is passionate about bacon. Back at school adjusting to life in the 5th grade, Aldo is embarrassed about his artistic abilities. He has always underplayed his creative talent at school; but when he is around his cute new art teacher he suddenly finds himself behaving strangely. He loses the ability to speak when she’s around, volunteers to skip recess so he can clean paintbrushes, and finds himself working harder than ever before in a daring attempt to win the school art contest. The humorous plot and lively drawings in this book will captivate both enthusiastic and reluctant young readers who will identify with Aldo's all-too-familiar predicaments. This fourth installment in an A-to-Z alphabet series features a vocabulary-building glossary of fun and challenging words starting with the letter D, such as debacle, doofus, and defenestrate.

I just received a copy of this book today from the author and am looking forward to reading it. This is the fourth book in the series and will be published this October. A new secondary character named Danny is introduced. Danny is deaf. I quickly flipped through the book. Since it is written as a comic, I was able to see a few signs illustrated so I'm assuming Danny knows sign language. We'll see:) A book review and an interview with the author will be posted soon (eeek! My semester is off to a very busy start!)