Joe Jacobs: How my sign language book ended up in Hollywood

As the author of a series of picture books designed to teach children sign language, I watched this year’s Academy Awards with keen interest, eager to discover whether The Silent Child would scoop the Oscar. But I had another special reason to watch closely.

In the run up to the Oscars, the film’s writer and star Rachel Shenton sent me a message to say that Maisie Sly, the film’s star, had taken my first book, How to Sign Animals with Terry the Monkey, to LA, and was using it to teach everyone to sign.

It was just possible, I thought, that during the four-hour awards ceremony, the cameras would pan to six-year-old Maisie as she cosied up to Meryl Streep, my picture book open in her lap. I imagined Gary Oldman signing ‘elephant’ on one side, Margot Robbie signing ‘cat’ on the other.

I created the character of Terry the Monkey (a monkey who is taught to sign by a gorilla) simply to amuse my children, before other parents encouraged me to develop the idea into a book.

My wife and I signed with our son and daughter when they were babies, and we can recall, as vividly as we remember their first spoken words, our children’s first signs: Eddie moving his fingertips from side to side in front of his mouth to sign ‘hot’, Emily making squeezing motions with her tiny fist to sign ‘milk.’

I wanted my children to continue to learn signs once they could talk, not least because they clearly enjoyed signing so much.

I wrote How to Sign Animals because Terry the Monkey lives in a zoo, and because animal signs can be used to teach children all of the basic handshapes required to sign.

Encouraged by the success of my first picture book, I translated How to Sign Animals into American Sign Language and began to write and illustrate further titles, including How to Sign Halloween and How to Sign Christmas.

In the last year, I’ve drawn Terry signing over 500 signs, and I plan to draw thousands more signing monkeys for a children’s dictionary.

It has been a struggle at times – publishing a book and getting it noticed (especially getting it noticed) can be hard work. I’m having to juggle writing and illlustrating with being a parent and teaching full-time in a secondary school. But the Terry the Monkey books have given me a passion and a purpose: to improve children’s access to sign language

The Silent Child has helped. I no longer have to explain to people why sign language can be a life-changing skill. I can tell them to watch the Oscar-winning film. At the screening I attended, the lights went up on 200 emotional wrecks, each of them converted by the beauty and power of BSL.

Adults can be condescending when I tell them I write children’s books about a signing monkey – but children get it. At the screening of The Silent Child at the Soho Hotel, Chris Overton, the film’s director, told me to wait while he fetched Maisie, who appeared carrying my book, and we posed for a photograph in front of the giant screen.

Maisie is the fourth generation of her family to be born profoundly deaf (including a great grandmother who earned a degree) so when she looked at me and signed ‘thank you’, it was a moment of validation.

I may not have seen Frances McDormand signing ‘rabbit’ (though I’m sure this took place off camera), but Terry the Monkey has made his first trip to Hollywood. (Maisie’s favourite sign, Rachel tells me, is ‘unicorn’. I’m not sure which Meryl liked best.)

Joe Jacobs is the author and illustrator of the Terry the Monkey sign language books for children. Joe is hearing, and studied English Literature at UCL and works as an Academic Achievement Tutor at a secondary school. How to Sign Animals with Terry the Monkey is available in paperback and ebook from Amazon. Find out more at terrythemonkey.com