Customer Reviews

Helen Keller's Teacher (Scholastic Biography)

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Helen Keller's teacher was a very interesing book. The book is about Annie Sullivan ( Helen Keller's teacher) as a young girl. This biography discusses and observes how Annie from ayoung age goes blind from a disease she contracted when she rubbed her eyes and scrathed her cornias. She goes on to school and learns to read braille because she couldn't see. She has a very tough and hard life. She had surgery on her eyes and it was successful. She could see. She then, finished school and went to teach Helen. She could deal with the same tantrums Helen displayed because she herself acted that way out of frustration. This book taught me that it is a lot of hard work to teach a kid. You have to have a lot of patience. I recommend this book because it explains how people have to work for their accomplishments. This book had a lot of information on Annie Sullivan. This book was sad because Annie Sullivan didn't have a good childhood. There was lots of disappointments and sadness in her life. She overcame so many obstacles and ended up being an inspirational leader for Helen. I hope you will read this book and learn about Annie's childhood.

the name Helen Keller.

I remember ordering this book through the Scholastic Book Club when I was ten. I couldn't wait to read the book. Anne Sullivan came from a background of poverty, neglect and disease; Helen a comfortable home in Alabama. Yet if not for Anne Sullivan, Helen might have wound up in a home for those whom society can't help.

The only postive characteristic Anne Sullivan got from her childhood was tenacity and perserverance, and those qualities served her well when she set out to teach Helen Keller.

From the time I was 10, Anne Sullivan has always been my hero. She never gave up, she was creative, stubborn, and believed a human being could accomplish anything he/she set their mind to.

She was right.

True story of Annie Sullivan's life. She was a miracle and a godsend to Helen Keller - a deaf, blind and mute girl who had never been able to communicate with others before the arrival of Annie Sullivan. Annie was not only Helen Keller's teacher but also Helen's best friend. You will see Annie's struggling endeavor to teach Helen to speak and she was eventually successful. I highly recommend this book to you and your young children.

FINALLY!!!! A book on one of society's greatest hereos, Anne Sullivan! Oh, boy, was her childhood a NIGHTMARE!!!! Oh, she was so strong to endure so much; she endured more pain in twelve years than most human beings endure in her lifetime. Poor Anne! It's her dignity & courage that keeps her going throughout poverty, her dad's alcoholism & abuse, her mom's tragic death, her own lifelong battle with trachoma & being blind, her brother's horrible death in the poorhouse, the terrible conditions in the poorhouse...wow, and to think she survived that all & grew up to reach out to Helen Keller & other handicapped people! Wow, were her cousins, John & Statia so stupid to dump her & Jimmie in the poorhouse; I wish I could just blast those two idiots for not understanding that they needed love & support, not to criticize Anne & put her down. Well, it was their loss since Anne battle her problems & grew up to be a loving, wonderful person to be proud of. The books goes through her arrival at Perkins, her difficulty dealing with her wounded feelings when other students make fun of her & when a teacher humiliates her, then her working hard & graduating valedictorian of her class. The part with Helen also changed her life & I'm glad they found each other since their relationship blossomed into a beautiful lifelong friendship. The part after the Breakfast Table Battle where Anne struggles & wins at getting Helen to eat with a fork is touching as it describes how Anne went up to her room afterward & cried. Poor Anne didn't realize how out of control Helen was! I found Arthur, James, & Kate a little shallow & short-sighted; after Anne opens the world of language for Helen, at first they fell all over her with praise since she'd "tamed" Helen so she'd be easier to handle, but I get the feeling that they, esp. Mr. Keller felt threatened by Anne & the fact that Helen had a closer bond with her than with them. I like how it went into how their relationship deepened over the years & became almost like a mother-daughter bond. Anne had her heart broken so many times throughout her life, yet I think Helen was one consistant light in her life. One thing the book left out was Anne's disastrous short marriage to John Macy (who, from what I've read in other books, was a real jerk who broke her heart, cheated on her & was jealous of her & I think even hit her). I would have liked to have read that there, but I guess since this was more of a teen-or-kid book, they didn't want to get into the sordid details of that. Anne stayed true to herself to the end & encouraged Helen to do so too, much to the chagrin of the rest of the Kellers. The best gift she gave Helen was her freedom & independence. I thought it was really wonderful that Anne wanted Helen to be even independent of her, since once Anne got old & became permanently blind, she wanted Helen to continue her happy, productive, independent life long after she was gone. It is such a good lesson of pushing yourself to be free, since once Anne died, Helen did just that...lived a free, independent life even without Anne & continued working on behalf of handicapped people everywhere. As the last sentence in the book says, "Annie hadn't failed." She sure didn't'; she really was a success story. WAY TO GO, ANNE SULLIVAN! CONGRATULATIONS, ANNE!

Hellen Kellers Teacher was a great book. I liked it because it had a lot of dialouge and lots of interesting facts I had never known That were about Annie her teacher. Annie was blind when she was little so she knew what Helen felt like. Most people concentrate on Helen but this is all about her teacher. I would recomend this to any 3rd 4th or 5th grader.

This is a very good book. I read it for a project i was doing on social studies about one of my hero's. I was doing extra credit and did two heros, Helen Keller and Anne Sulivan. This book helped me imensly. I would recomend it for anyone who is doing a project on either Helen Keller or Anne Sullivan.

Anne Sullivan Macy's work with Helen Keller is certainly ground breaking. A survivor of paternal abuse, abandonment in a poorhouse with her terminally ill brother and a nearly-lifelong battle with trachoma all hardened Ms. Macy's armor. She was so bright and determined that she made a good academic showing at the Perkins Institute for the Blind and it was through this noted institution that she was assigned to work with Helen Keller, who suffered the dual challenges of being blind and deaf.

One admires her gritty determination; she survives the poor house, which was a genuine Chamber of Horrors; she survives being relegated there with her terminally ill brother as no other relatives were willing to take her in; she survives the painful loss of her brother and the subsequent losses of others she came to know in the poor house.

This is a good starter book and provides interesting information about Anne Sullivan Macy's life. The one drawback is that it does get stuck at the water pump where Helen learned, from Ms. Macy's constant spelling into her hand that all things have a name. This "watershed" landmark in Helen Keller's life is, in her words, "her soul's birthday." Helen, then nearly 7, learned at the now famous water pump that all things can be identified by name. For her, that singular lesson served as her lifelong key to communication.

I admit, I do get rather tired of that water pump scene because many otherwise good works seem to get stuck there. Many books that cover Helen Keller, this one included, languish at the water pump and with what little speed the book has left gives scant attention to the many accomplishments these women made and their indelible stamp on history.

This book is highly recommended for all readers. It is a very impressive story of a blind, deaf girl and her teacher who brought everthing to her life. This book is an amust for classic book lovers.

Miss Sullivan was called MIRACLE WORKER. it is a story by William Gibson. i think Helen Keller was so great and i admired her too much. if some one think that they cannot do something they should read the books about Helen Keller , they will understand everything could be done is they try as much as they can

My teacher made my class read the book "Helen Keller's Teacher",it wasn't an individual choice. I think he made us read this book he wanted us to learn that some people have a world that is totally silent,dark or both. I also think that he wanted us to learn not to take our hearing, and speech for granted because it really is a great gift. What happened in the book was annie's mother died and Annie and her brother Jimmy were sent to the Tewksburry poor-house. After a while jimmy died and Annie got into Perkins Institution. She was the valedictorian of her graduating class of 1886. She worked hard all her life and died on October19,1936. I think you should read this book to learn about a hard-working woman.