I am not this book’s target audience, for a few reasons. I am a hearnig person, not involved in the education or upbringing of Deaf children. I am, however, fairly knowledgeable about Deaf culture through extensive reading, hence this book. Also, I am not Canadian. Cripps is both Deaf and Canadian and has done an excellent job at assembling resources, anecdotes and tip sheets for helping parents, educators, caregivers and lawmakers understand and advocate for the rights of Deaf children. Some of Cripps’s advice is common sense: a Deaf child in a hearing classroom is not receving the same quality of education as they would in an all-Deaf classroom, even with the aid of an interpreter. Some of it is more intangible: how much do we allow the rights of Deaf people to come up against the rights of the rest of society, for example how does our criminal justice system deal with Deaf criminals?

While I agreed with most of her assertions and suggestions, readers of this book would be well advised that Cripps is staunchly pro-ASL, anti-oralism and anti cochlear implants [though perhaps not as strongly]. While this is a perfectly legitimate position within the Deaf community, people with no knowledge of the technology or systems that Cripps is talking about will not find well-rounded exaplanations here.