The Printer

As a boy, my father learned to speak with his hands. As a man, he learned how to turn lead-type letters into words and sentences. My father loved being a printer.Each day in 1940s New York a young boy watches as his father goes to work in the noisy newspaper printing factory. But the boy’s father only feels the machines’ loud pounding and rumbling as vibrations through the soles of his shoes. He is deaf. Although his father communicates with a few other deaf printers through his hands, he feels largely ignored by his hearing co-workers. But when a silent deadly fire erupts, it is up to the father to warn and save his coworkers, even when they cannot hear him over the printers. Myron Uhlberg draws on his own experiences as the hearing son of deaf parents to create this dramatic, evocative story that reflects a respect for deaf culture and the unique gifts each individual possesses. Historical details are deftly rendered and brought to life in Henri Sørensen’s extraordinary paintings that dramatize and illuminate the powerful text.