Ann LeZotte - T4

Many thanks to my sister, Jean Marie LeZotte, my brother, Peter George LeZotte, and my sister-in-law, Jennifer LeZotte. And to my dog friend/helper May, her dog Basho, and Pebbles and Twister for keeping me laughing.

Special thanks to Sid Fleischman, Shelly Ruble, Mari Lu Grant, my Dog Wood Park friends, Jenny Moussa, and to my editor, Margaret Raymo, for seeing what I was trying to do and helping me do it—beyond what I’d ever imagined.

Ann Clare LeZotteis completely deaf from a birth defect and illness. As a young girl in Long Island, New York, she banged her head for hours at a time and created her own world. She had a percentage of hearing in one ear during her grade school years, which helped her learn to speak, lip read, and assimilate into hearing culture. She has gone through years where she communicated mostly using a pad and pencil. She learned American Sign Language in her early twenties. A 1991 graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, she has had her poems published in the American Poetry Review, the New Republic, and the Threepenny Review. She received fellowships from Hedgebrook, the MacDowell Colony, VCCA, and Yaddo, as well as a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, with her younger sister and their three dogs and one cat.

Ann Clare LeZottelives in Gainesville, Florida, with her younger sister and their three dogs and one cat. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, she has had her poems published in the American Poetry Review , the New Republic, and the Threepenny Review. She received fellowships from Hedgebrook, the MacDowell Colony, VCCA, and Yaddo, as well as a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. Ann is completely deaf. This is her first novel.

Copyright © 2008 by Ann Clare LeZotte

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The text of this book is set in Calisto MT.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

LeZotte, Ann Clare.

T4 : a novel in verse / written by Ann Clare LeZotte.

p. cm.

Summary: When the Nazi party takes control of Germany, thirteen-year-old Paula, who is deaf, finds her world-as-she-knows-it turned upside down, as she is taken into hiding to protect her from the new law nicknamed T4.

ISBN-13: 978-0-547-04684-6

[1. Novels in verse. 2. Deaf—Fiction. 3. People with disabilities—Fiction. 4. Aktion T4 (Germany)—Fiction. 5. Germany—History—1933-1945—Fiction.] I. Title. II. Title: Tee four.

PZ7.5.L49Taal 2008

[Fic]—dc22

2007047737

Printed in the United States of America

TK 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1