Cece Bell Books In Order

Publication Order of Chick and Brain Books

Publication Order of Rabbit & Robot Books

Publication Order of Sock Monkey Books

Publication Order of Yam and Donkey Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Picture Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Cece Bell
Cece Bell was born in the year 1950 in Richmond, Virginia. She is the illustrator of the successful “Sock Monkey” series from Candlewick and Crankee Doodle by Tom Angleberger, her husband. They came up with the basic idea for “Crankee Doodle” together coming up with the basic page layout and idea on a car road trip. Tom then polished up the writing and Cece worked on doing the pictures.

While she’s an author and an illustrator, she’s unfortunately not a jazz pianist. She’s got a graduate degree in design and illustration from Kent State University. She is also hearing impaired.

Cece represents her characters as rabbits in “El Deafo” since they have huge ears. She believed that it’d be a perfect visual metaphor to depict herself as being the only rabbit in a whole crowd of rabbits whose ears just don’t work. As a kid, she felt rather conspicuous with her hearing aid cords going up to her ears, and showing these cords going way up over her head into her rabbit ears is rather close to how she believed that others have to perceive her. And you just cannot top rabbits when it comes to cuteness.

She lost much of her hearing when she was just four and a half years old after she contracted meningitis. Her parents didn’t even realize she had any hearing problems until several days later after returning home from the hospital.

She read “SMILE” by Raina Telemeier, and shortly after reading it, she realized that the graphic novel format would be the absolute perfect way to tell her own story.

Before writing “El Deafo”, she hadn’t ever written a graphic novel before. Cece worked on it for roughly five years, illustrating and drawing the book along with some other projects. She doesn’t know how graphic novelists are able to make more than just one in their entire lifetime. The comic book approach helped her in telling her story. In many scenes a character’s speech balloon will either be empty or is filled in just with gibberish. It is the perfect visual way to illustrate how a deaf or a hard-of-hearing may or may not be hearing.

The name of “El Deafo” was a nickname that Cece gave herself, and never shared with another person during her younger years. Somebody told her about this “ABC Afterschool Special” episode where a kid calls deaf child “Deafo”. Initially she believed it was funny, but then it made her quite mad. She thought about how she’d call herself that so that if anybody ever said it to her, she’d be ready. And it did help.

With the book, she was striving more for emotional truth over the literal truth. She wanted to show readers just how it felt to be the one and only deaf child in the entire school, and even what it sounded like, as well. She just also wanted to tell a story that entertained her readers. So she had to slightly readjust her personal time line and make some composites of the people that she knew. Otherwise it would have just gotten confusing and readers would’ve fallen asleep by the 21st page.

It took Cece the longest time before she was even ready to write at all about her childhood. She finally hit a point in her life when she was able to admit she was deaf, having tried to keep it hidden for so very long. Her hearing loss was rather traumatic and adjusting to the hearing aid while in school caused her so very much humiliation that the feelings and memories from that time in her life were quite easy to get to.

The Phonic Ear she wore when she was a child is nowhere near as large as it appears in her own drawings. It is really just three inches wide by four inches tall, however to a young Cece, who wore it strapped on her chest (hidden under the bib of her overalls), it just felt huge.

This graphic memoir has resonated with quite a lot of hearing-impaired kids and adults. Like she notes in the afterword of the book, there is this spectrum of deafness and each deaf person’s approach, and experience is different. Still, one of the biggest thrills she gets has been finding people that are a lot like her. It really is the best.

Cece’s absolute favorite part of being an author is being allowed to work from home, and being able to work in her pajamas. Not having a boss is a bonus, although editors, in some ways, are actually your bosses.

Cece lives in this old church in the hills of Virginia. She works right next door in this new-ish barn. She has written and illustrated a ton of books for kids, and was even lucky enough to win a Geisel Honor for one of them.

“El Deafo” is the first stand alone graphic novel and was released in the year 2014. Going to school and making some new friends can often be quite tough. However going to school and making some new friends as you wear a bulky hearing aid strapped right to your chest? This requires total superpowers!
Cece Bell chronicles her own hearing loss that occurred from a young age and her subsequent experiences with the Phonic Ear, which is a very powerful, yet rather awkward, hearing aid. The Phonic Ear gives Cece the ability to hear (sometimes certain things that she shouldn’t) but it also isolates her from her own classmates. She only just wants to fit in and find somebody that’d be her real friend, somebody that appreciates her just as she is.

After a bit of trouble, she’s finally able to harness the true power of the Phonic Ear and become “El Deafo, Listener for All”. Even more importantly, declare a place for herself in the world and find that one friend that she has longed for, that one true friend.

This perceptive and funny graphic novel memoir about growing up while hearing impaired is also this unforgettable book all about growing up, along with all of the super super embarrassing moments that happen along the way.