"I just wanted to say a mighty big thank you for choosing my book to be part of this fantastic project! It's so exciting to think that the digital world can serve as a real inroad into the realm of reading for deaf children!"

Karen McCombie is an author and has written more than 70 books including the best-selling ‘Ally’s World’ and ‘Indie Kidd’ series. At the age of five, Karen and her family emigrated to Australia which coincided with her suffering from a severe long-term ear infection which left her with partial hearing. Karen describes the loss of her hearing as “feeling cut-off and lonely in my new surroundings”. On returning to the UK, she had intensive treatment and her hearing returned, but she says she felt she had slipped behind her fellow classmates. In her early career, Karen worked for teenage magazines including J17 and Sugar, before turning her attention to writing short stories.