We publish books for d/Deaf children and their families

Our books feature bold and optimistic d/Deaf characters, who are proud of who they are - some sporting their cochlear implants and/or hearing aids and using their voices (and sometimes their hands too!) to communicate, with others not using hearing aids of any kind and embracing Deaf culture and sign language! Alongside their friends, teachers, therapists and families, our plucky characters encounter and overcome diverse challenges. These may be specific to their listening and spoken language learning journeys, their sign language journeys, or general life experiences. Starring D/deaf champions and filled with fun, purposeful content, our books can help inject a little extra magic into the hard work of learning to read and communicate, while boosting children’s self-esteem and sense of belonging, and supporting their cognitive and social development.

We publish d/Deaf voices

Don’t miss our range of books written by d/Deaf authors and/or illustrated by d/Deaf artists! Their strong voices and personal insights bring a priceless perspective to our books, and to AVID Language’s mission as a whole, by sharing their lived experience to support, inspire and uplift the children and families following in their footsteps.

We publish parents’ voices

Most professionals working with deaf children will tell you that, alongside optimally functioning cochlear implants or hearing aids, parental input is the single most important factor determining a child’s success in learning to communicate, whether through sign language or a listening and spoken language approach. After all, parents know their children better than anyone else, including their strengths and weaknesses, and parents tend to spend more time than anyone else with their young children at the critical age for language development (0-5 years old). Each therapy session may last an hour once or twice a week/fortnight, but for a child to learn to communicate well, strategies (whether for listening and spoken language or for sign language) need to be integrated by parents into every aspect of everyday home life (and by teachers into school life). Therefore, while they may not be professional therapists, parents do become experienced practitioners. Sharing their experiences, either through biographical works or figuratively through fictional stories, can help other families of deaf children traveling along the same path and facing similar hurdles, whether related to speech and language or general social development.

We publish professional perspectives

We’re grateful to be working alongside so many professionals who have spent decades supporting d/Deaf children and their families. Their perspectives add an important extra dimension to the AVID Language range - they have so much expertise to share. We believe that the voices of all our creatives are valid and powerful - those who are d/Deaf, those who are parents, those who are professionals - all have important lived experience from different perspectives which, shared in a mutually respectful atmosphere, can help to raise the bar for d/Deaf children, giving them the foundation they need to reach for their own individual stars, wherever they may lie!

We create awareness to foster compassion, acceptance and inclusion

Our books are designed to support d/Deaf children on multiple levels, from strengthening communication and social skills to cognitive development. They also discuss how to cope growing up with a physical disability like hearing loss, challenging hearing readers to imagine what it must feel like to be deaf, thereby creating a better understanding of deafness and, equally, a greater acceptance of any children who might be viewed by others as ‘being a little different’. We hope this greater awareness will help hearing children to understand that there is nothing ‘wrong’ with being deaf - it’s just one part of their multifaceted identity. Deaf children, like all children, can go on to achieve great things. Nonetheless, there are small but significant accommodations that their friends can implement to make life easier for them, and through our stories, we aim to demonstrate this. We hope our books will play a small part in fostering consideration and compassion, ultimately resulting in a more accepting, inclusive and supportive environment for all children.

While featuring d/Deaf characters, our books will also resonate with other children who may feel different for one reason or another, whether they are coping with a physical disability, are autistic, struggle with communication, or have other challenges. We hope our stories can support their learning adventures, while building a sense of pride in who they are (after all, they are perfect just the way they are) and a strong sense of identity, not based upon their so-called disabilities but upon their abilities.