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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A more complete picture of an extraordinary person's life, June 4, 2001
As a young child, the story of Helen Keller intrigued me, and I read many books about her. However, none of them presents as a complete a picture as this one. I think it would probably help in reading this book if you already "know" the story of Helen Keller, because while Dash talks about things like "the miracle at the well", she does not make these events the entire focus of this book. Even in Helen's lifetime, people were amazed by the stunning events of her childhood, and seem to think that that was all there was to her. In this biography, Dash sets out to talk not just about Helen Keller's childhood, but her whole life. She talks about Helen's disillusionment with what college was about. In all the books I had read about Helen Keller before, including her own "The Story of My Life", I did not know that she was a Socialist or that there were many times when she and Annie were uncertain as to what they would do in the future. Furthermore, though I knew that in later years there was a woman named Polly Thompson who also helped Helen, I never knew anything more about her than her name. In this book, I finally was able to learn more about things that were never mentioned in other "kids'" biographies, and I was glad of that. The only thing that was a little sad was that I realized more that Helen Keller was human, rather than just the prodigious child who could overcome anything that I kept reading about when I was younger. She grew up, and she had her share of sorrows and joys, ambitions and setbacks. If you are really interested in her entire life, this is the book to read.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A realistic view of a subject that is normally romanticized, March 3, 2002
I originally bought this book from the [a Book Club], for my kids. However, once I got into the book, I realized that since my kids are boys they weren't going to read it -- but I did and thought it was great. I was familiar with the story of Helen Keller as a child and a young woman: her miraculous learning of language, her amazing graduation from Radcliffe -- but I did not know much about what went on later. Despite her being an international celebrity and despite her tremendous accomplishments, Helen Keller remained very handicapped and totally dependent on others to be able to survive in the world. She basically only earned a living by marketing herself as a curiosity. One thing that I had never realized was that Helen Keller was unusually beautiful, with an expressive face, not at all what one might have expected from a blind, deaf person -- which is apparently part of what made her so marketable. This book follows her until the very end, when she died at 87. The book is an easy read, being made for children, or adolescents, and presents a very realistic point of view. I would recommend it for younger teenage girls, or for anyone who wants a quick and painless review of Helen Keller's whole life.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You will come away feeling empowered by this story., July 21, 2004
A Kid's Review
This is a good biography of Helen Keller (1880-1968), the blind and deaf girl who demonstrated that many things in life were still possible to those with physical challenges. This volume covers all the major events and important people in Keller's life. Because she was in the public spotlight for most of her years, this book talks about many of the great public figures and events of Keller's day. The book includes two sets of pictures, one from her early and one from her later years. You'll read about her personal struggles, her private fears, her education, her work, and her politics. And you'll be amazed at the full and productive life of one of the most remarkable women who ever lived.
From the time that she was six years old until the end of her long life, Helen was famous. It began as an accidental tragedy: she developed a fever that almost killed her when she was 19 months old. When she recovered, her sight faded slowly away; her parents learned that she had become deaf also. The last word to fade away from Helen was the word "water." Then there was nothing.
She lived the first few years of her life like a little savage, unable to be reached by those around her except in the most primitive of human communications, touch. She ate by roaming around the dinner table and sticking her hands into other people's plates. Nobody knew how to discipline a child who was so severely handicapped --- and it seemed cruel to discipline her at all. But Helen was highly intelligent, and she knew that other people could talk with their mouths in a way that she could not. Her rage at this "differentness" that she could not understand found its expression in what she later called the Phantom. When the Phantom side of Helen's personality appeared, she was wild, physically strong, and almost uncontrollable.
Then, when Helen was six years old, her parents learned about the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston. They asked for a teacher to come and help Helen. And the school sent a 20-year-old girl who was barely sighted herself, Annie Sullivan. Annie, in one month, taught Helen what a word is and that everything has a name. With that one key, Annie opened the world to Helen and empowered her to become a part of it.
Helen was born in June 1880, on a farm in Alabama. She died a world-famous woman in June 1968. Her life spanned two world wars. She traveled around the entire globe. In 1904, she graduated cum laude (with praise) from Radcliffe College. During her career, she gave lectures, worked in vaudeville, and mingled with presidents, kings, and emperors. She helped to raise the world's consciousness about blindness and deafness. People became aware of what the handicapped could accomplish and that they didn't need to be pitied and shut away from the world.
Though it's a biography of Keller, this book really tells the story of two remarkable women, Helen and Annie. Throughout her long life, Helen remained devoted to Annie, whom she always called Teacher. As remarkable as Helen's hard work and life's achievement were, they were matched by Annie's. Annie Sullivan gave her entire life to the furtherance of Helen's experiences. It was Annie who sat beside Helen in every class during her college years, tapping into her hand everything the instructors said. And it was Annie who read her college texts to her endlessly, sacrificing her own failing eyesight to do so.
You will come away feeling empowered by this story about what can be accomplished when people dedicate their lives to a high purpose.
---Reviewed by Tamara Penny
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