Moses Sees a Play

Moses, a young deaf boy attends a special school where his classmates and teacher, Mr. Samuels, are also either deaf or hard of hearing. They all use American Sign Language, ASL, as their preferred mode of communication. One day, Ms. Morgan and her class from a different school, come for a visit. Although Ms. Morgan and her students are not deaf, Ms. Morgan knows ASL and has been teaching her class. All the children are excited to see the play the Little Theatre of the Deaf is going to put on after lunch! The children spend the morning getting to know each other. Moses meets Manuel who has just come to the United States and does not yet know English or sign language. Throughout the rest of the day, the two boys communicate using gestures.

After lunch, the production of Cinderella begins! The Little Theatre of the Deaf includes four actors who perform in ASL and spoken English. When the play is over, the children are eager to work on their own classroom productions that they will share with each other. At the very end of the story, Moses tells his Mom all about his exciting day and talks to his grandparents on his TTY.

Moses Sees a Play seamlessly incorporates ASL and English in a positive and enlightening way. Both languages are recognized as important and necessary to Moses and his classmates. The very beginning of the book includes an author’s note which gives a brief explanation of ASL as well as instructions on how to read the arrows and symbols featured throughout the book. In his note, Millman shares his inspiration for his most recent Moses book. After seeing a production put on by the Little Theatre of the Deaf, Millman knew he wanted Moses and his classmates to experience the same thing. Millman got the idea to include a group of hearing students after visiting “47” The American Sign Language and English School for the Deaf in New York City. There, he saw both deaf and hearing children interact using ASL. In his note, Millman also thanks two Deaf teachers, Dorothy Cohler and Joel Goldfarb, who teach at “47.” The two advised Millman while illustrating the featured sign language diagrams.

While the majority of the text is in English, most of the pages include a sentence or phrase in ASL. At the end of the book, there is a full-page spread completely in ASL with English glosses underneath the diagrams of the Moses signing. These pages accurately portray the proper facial expression, handshape, movement and syntax of ASL. The very last page depicts Moses using a TTY, a Teletype device used by the deaf to communicate over the telephone.

Moses Sees a Play is just one book in Millman’s Moses series. Other books include, Moses Goes to a Concert and Moses Goes to the Circus. Overall, Moses is a dynamic deaf character who positively portrays deaf people as capable and independent. Not only may deaf children relate to Moses and his classmates, but hearing children are given the opportunity to learn about another culture, Deaf culture.

Millman, Isaac. Moses Sees a Play. New York: Frances Foster Books, 2004.