Book review: Ling Ling Bird Hears with his Magic Ears

Written by Tanya Saunders
Available from Amazon
Price: £10.99
Ages: 0 to 5

Reviewed by Paola, who is mum to Everly (2). Everly is profoundly deaf and wears cochlear implants.

I came across AVID Language [a publisher of books for deaf children] on Facebook through posts from other mums. At the time, our daughter Everly was waiting for cochlear implant surgery, having been born profoundly deaf in both ears.

I saw the book 'Ling Ling Bird Hears with his Magic Ears' and thought it was a fantastic idea for practising Ling sounds once she was implanted, and also for practising British Sign Language (BSL) animal signs.

The book is very easy to follow, even for younger children (Everly was just over one year old when she started looking at it). It has lots of colours to attract their attention, clear illustrations and lots of vocabulary to learn both with spoken language and signs.

We have 'signed sessions' through the day, and that's when Everly would sit next to me and look through the book, vocalising and signing. Her favourite animals from the book are 'bee' and 'lion'.

Fast forward to today, and she is still interested in the book, so it's also a good investment! However, now she is teaching me!

Since then, we have bought a few other books, and Everly is always very interested in them – well done AVID Language! I would totally recommend them to families at the beginning of their deafness journey, when everything is new and it's tougher than it should be!