You Don’t Know Everything, Jilly P!

This book by Alex Gino is about Jilly P.’s younger sister, Emma, who is born deaf. Jilly needs to learn how to cope with her sister as she grows up.

In the book, Jilly then makes a connection with Derek, who is an American Sign Language user. So now she has someone she can go to for help but she never knows when it’s the right time to ask for it. She makes some mistakes and encounters minor frustration with Derek and her family members.

During the course of time certain events allow Jilly P to learn how to support other people and not just focus her attention on her little sister. When she finds out that a girl in her school, who is black, got shot she soon realizes that she needs to start supporting other people.

What I Liked About This book:

I liked how the book taught us about modern racism and police violation in the United States. Alex Gino said that this book was aimed especially at white people to help them not be very judgmental about blacks.

What I also liked about this book is that Alex Gino’s writing style was perfect. It wasn’t overly descriptive, so that I would get lost, and it wasn’t too concise that I would not be interested in it. Jilly also told me how to make a perfect PB&J sandwich which was so interesting to read and it made the book way more interactive. My favourite character is Derek because he was very friendly to Jilly even if she didn’t know how to ask for help.

About the characters:

Jilly P is a sweet and lovely girl. She is very eager to learn sign language and she is very determined to help her baby sister. However she wants tips and tricks from Derek she sometimes not know the best way to ask him.

Derek (aka, profoundinoaktown which is his name on an online chat called Vidalia) is a very cool and inspiring character. He is very patient with Jilly and teaches her how to cope with deaf people since he is deaf himself.

Have you read any books by Alex Gino? What did you think?