TV Shows We Love: Switched at Birth (with book recommendations) by Carli Spina

As soon as I found out that Teen Librarian Toolbox was going to have a series of posts on favorite TV shows, I knew I wanted to write about Switched at Birth. Currently in its third season on ABC Family, the show centers around two families who discover that their daughters were inadvertently switched by the hospital when they were born. One of the daughters, Daphne, lost her hearing as a toddler due to bacterial meningitis. As the show opens, she has been attending a school for the Deaf for years, meaning that many of the characters in the show are Deaf or hard of hearing and communicate primarily or entirely via American Sign Language (ASL). The other characters in the show are a mix of Deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing. During the first season, one of the major plot points revolves around Daphne’s newly found biological family learning ASL to better communicate with her as they get to know each other as a family. Despite being Deaf, Daphne is never defined solely by this aspect of her character. She is a stellar athlete and a good cook, both of which are just as central to her character as is her deafness. 

Over the course of its three seasons, the show has never shied away from topics relating to deafness and Deaf culture, tackling topics such as the choice of one character to get cochlear implants, the difficulty some family members have with learning and using ASL, and the activism of the students at the fictional Carlton School for the Deaf when the school is threatened with closure. But, while the show deals with these topics, it doesn’t treat its Deaf characters differently than the hearing characters. Instead, the show highlights how its Deaf characters face the same plethora of issues that other teens in the show face related to relationships, career plans and extracurricular activities.

Wait For Me by An Na: In this book from An Na, Mina is a high school senior who is caught in a web of lies that she has created in an attempt to appease her demanding mother. She is forced into the role of perfect daughter, struggling for straight As, working at her family’s dry cleaner, and helping out with her hearing-impaired sister. The book captures the pressures that teenagers can feel while trying to decide whether to strive for the dreams of their family or to instead break free to follow their own passions.

Carli Spina is a librarian with an interest in young adult literature and Switched at Birth is definitely a TV show she loves. Find her on Twitter (@CarliSpina) for more on young adult literature and librarianship. 

Filed under: Diversity in YA, Switched at Birth, TV Shows We Love