Hurt Go Happy

You might think Hurt Go Happy is an odd title for a book, but if you're familiar with American Sign Language it might not seem so strange.

I saw this book, by Ginny Rorby, in a catalog. It's about a Deaf girl who meets an old man raising a baby chimpanzee and teaching it Sign Language. Since I've had lots of experience with Deaf people and once met Koko, the famous gorilla who learned how to sign, I couldn't resist buying the book.

The girl in the story has been forbidden to learn Sign Language by her mother, but starts learning it from the old man and becomes friends with Sukari, the Chimpanzee. But when the old man dies, Sukari is shipped off to a horrible research facility where she and many other animals are treated cruelly.

Is there any way a young girl who can't hear can find a way to save the animal she loves?

Some of the realistic descriptions of the research facility are disturbing but I recommend this book anyway because it's exciting, well written, and should motivate lots of readers to care about animals and understand that people who can't hear are not very different from themselves.