During my years as a special needs assistant, I discovered the complex relationships deaf children have with rhymes and stories. They perceive the world in a way, which I think of as spatial, peculiar to deaf people. The same friend, a psychologist and Italian Sign Language interpreter who worked in primary schools, explained to me that the linear development of a song, or certain characteristics of most classic children stories, do not belong to them, in a sense, until they are older and better able to interpret the hearing society's features, and when they grasp them they tend to do so in a more "intellectual" than "felt" way. Very often, these stories, songs and rhymes are simply unknown to them unless someone makes them accessible (maybe it is not so in other countries, but it was so in Italy at the time of the conversation with my friend. Someone may also argue that deaf children and deaf culture may develop their own equivalents of rhymes and stories and be happy with that; but I believe that knowing and sharing more is always better that knowing and sharing less...).
So, I welcome the idea of a nursery song book introducing some BSL signs deaf children and hearing children can use together, also accessible to childcarers and teachers who can't sign. In the library here in Galway I noticed many other board books centred on signs for toddlers.
Such books were a rarity in Italy, if there were any at all. Their importance cannot be overstated; so, five stars!
By the way, I will add the toddlerometre (toddlers' enjoyment rate) verdict after trying it in the nursery next week. ( )