About this item
Life for Dinora Diaz, DeeDee for short, is full of D's. Missing her dad, who's disappeared. Being diagnosed with diabetes. Feeling dumb in fourth grade at her new school, which she transferred into -- leaving behind Sandro Zapote and all her other friends in Miss Hamilton's class -- after her family's trailer burned down. It's so many D's that DeeDee's sure she'll never really fit in, much less find the perfect best friend she's always wanted.Then DeeDee meets River. He's a lot like her: River loves skateboarding, art, and dancing, just like she does, and he misses his dad, too. But they're also different: while DeeDee's still struggling to adjust to life with diabetes and has sworn off her Mexican heritage to get back at her dad for leaving, River seems to have totally adjusted to -- even learned to love -- being deaf.
About the Author
With a masters in bilingual literacy, and reading and ESL endorsements, Bibi Belford spent many years teaching reading to second language learners. When her students kept complaining few books related to their experiences, she promised to write them one. Canned and Crushed is that book. Now, her former students are her biggest fans. Her second novel, middle grade historical fiction, set in Chicago in 1919, will be released in spring, 2017. Bibi recently moved from the suburbs to Chicago where she's learning to love city living. She has four kids and two grandkids and loves hiking, biking, reading, quilting, and volunteering at a local school.
