*All He Knew by Helen Frost

All He Knew pictures grace in the midst of gloom as a deaf child learns to navigate life in an  institution.

*All He Knew by Helen Frost.  Farrar Straus Giroux, 2020, 250 pages.

Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 10-12

Recommended for: ages 10-15

NOTE: All He Knew won the 2020 Scott O’Dell award for historical fiction.

“Henry comes here on a Greyhound bus.”

Here is a place he’s never been and doesn’t understand, a place of brick buildings and gray-painted walls and unpleasant smells. Here, boys are expected to walk in lines and do as they’re told or face the consequences. Since the age of four, when a fever took his hearing, Henry has been labeled “unteachable” by teachers who didn’t understand much about deafness. Under the strong recommendation of state officials, Henry is taken to Riverview Home for the Feebleminded, where he stays for the next five years. His family is at first too poor to afford to the bus fare to visit him more than twice a year. Then, when Pearl Harbor happens, they have more money but no time, as both parents are working 6-7 days a week toward the war effort.

This could have been a very grim story, but it’s leavened with grace and kindness. Henry himself, modeled on the author’s brother-in-law, is sweet-natured and bright, though he’s tempted early on to curl up and become as dull and unresponsive as others assume. Watch out, Henry–/ what if you pretend to be that person/ and then you accidentally turn into him? But his intelligence remains hidden until a new attendant discovers it. This is Victor, a conscious objector who is allowed to substitute volunteer service for military service. Through Victor’s efforts, Henry is recognized as teachable after all, and the story ends happily.

The free-verse format is an excellent choice for the perspective of a boy whose life is full of sensations and impressions he doesn’t understand. We’ve come a long way from categorizing the deaf and cognitively disabled as “unteachable,” but this sensitive novel shows how light can shine even in the darkest places.

Overall Rating: 4.5 (out of 5)

• Worldview/moral value: 4.5
• Artistic/literary value: 4.75

Also at Redeemed Reader:

• Review: Salt is another historical novel in verse by Helen Frost, this one set during the War of 1812.
• Review: Characters who are deaf take center stage in the novels Show Me a Sign, Six, and Song for a Whale.
• Review: El Deafo is Cece Bell’s graphic-novel memoir of her early life with hearing aids; Silent Star is the picture-book biography of William Hoy, a hero of the early days of baseball.

We are participants in the Amazon LLC affiliate program; purchases you make through affiliate links like the one below may earn us a commission. Read more here.