The Butterfly Cage by Rachel Zemach: A Book Review
- rkasigns9
- Dec 13, 2025
- 2 min read
Updated: Dec 30, 2025
***This book review contains no spoilers, although I was very tempted to.
I'll be honest, this book put me on a roller coaster of emotions that I did not expect to have. The Butterfly Cage is a memoir written by Rachel Zemach, writing about her experience as a Teacher of the Deaf in Public Schools of California. Later in her life, she worked for the School for the Deaf.
I am extremely passionate about language deprivation. Since 90% of Deaf children are born to hearing parents, most Deaf children do not learn Sign Language (apart from a few home signs and gestures) until they arrive to Kindergarten, where they may have an ASL Interpreter. This can have detrimental effects for life when it comes to brain, language, and social development. This book shows practical illustrations of real life examples of Deaf children acquiring language in a world of audism and speech therapy.
In her book, Zemach fights against the system for her students. I found myself laughing, crying, inspired, and crushed as I read through this book.
I was especially impressed with Zemach's wordsmithery. She wrote similes and metaphors. She explained ASL signs and Deaf culture to make it understandable for a reader that may not have a lot of background knowledge about these topics. As a fluent signer, I was able to easily know which signs she was referring to based on her descriptions (which is a feat in and of itself, because ASL is a visual language).
I recommend this book, 100%. If you are in any way involved in Deaf education, whether it's interpreting, teaching, speech therapy, or if you're a student yourself, this book will open your eyes to the impact of language deprivation and audism from a Deaf perspective.
All in all, I rate this book 5 stars!
Check out Rachel Zemach's Website Here.
Purchase her book on Amazon.
What should I read next? Let me know in the comments below!
Further Reading about Language Deprivation:
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