Customer Reviews

The World At Her Fingertips: Story Of Helen Keller, The

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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

This book was most defnitely an interesting to read, if not altogether a delight. The intricacies of the relationships that Helen Keller experienced with Annie Sullivan, her mother, Alexander Graham Bell, the socialist party, the Roosevelts, and John Macy, were given careful attention that have been lacking in many of the other books that I have read on Helen Keller. Helen proved to be an extremely fascinating woman rather than just the product of Annie Sullivan's genius at teaching.

Joan Dash's work is to be highly commended. If there is one flaw with her work, it is that some of the sections are slow and cumbersome to read in comparison with the rest of the book. It misses the five star mark only because it is not an altogether smooth read. Nonetheless, Dash's work should be viewed as a treasure amongst Helen Keller biographies for decades to come.

Crazy James

Good, fairly accurate description of Helen's life, but there were a few inaccuracies and I got the feeling that the author was a little critical of poor Anne Sullivan at one point. Joan once mentions that Anne "reduced Mr. Gilman to a mass of quivering jelly" when talking about Mr. Gilman's (I think cruel) plot to forcibly separative Anne and Helen, wrongly implying that Anne was this domineering tyrant. I was soo glad to read that Mr. Gilman's awful plan failed. But if anything, it was Mr. Gilman who tried to crush Anne; he had poor Anne in tears! I got the feeling he was jealous of the close bond Anne and Helen had & their achievements. Another inaccuracy was the claim that Anne was "scornful" of women's suffrage; Anne was not; she just didn't pay too much attention to it until Helen got her into it; Anne was actually very much pro-suffrage by the time she'd split from John Macy. It was a curious thing another reviewer said that Helen "marketed" herself as a curiosity; I guess what it is was that both Helen and Anne had peculiar handicaps & used them as assets to support themselves rather than depending on others to support them. And it does still make their lives remarkable esp. since they lived in an era where neither handicapped individuals or women were encourage to lead independent lives. All in all, a good descriptive biography.

"Do you believe in life after death?" "Most certainly. It's no more than passing from one room into another.... But there's a difference for me, you know. Because in that other - room - I shall be able to see." The World At Her Fingertips, a biography on Helen Keller, explores the public and well known life of Helen Keller. Keller lost her eyesight and hearing around the age of one, which called for a different kind of learning. With the help of Annie Sullivan she pursued her dreams of going to school and became well known for her achievements, despite her handicap, and her determination. The story itself of Helen Keller's life is inspiring, therefore, I would recommend this book.

One reason I recommend this book is because of the inspiration it gives. It was inspiring from beginning to end. In the beginning of the book Helen, deaf and blind, began to learn words and that was inspiring because it shows that we all have the potential to do things if we try. At the end she was asked if she believed in life after death. She responded by saying she most certainly did, for it was no more than passing from one room into another, but the only difference for her would be that she would gain sight of the things around her.

Another reason I'd recommend this book is because of the education it gives in return of reading it. You learn more about Helen Keller's life but also the people around her, and how society was in the early 1900's.

Although I really liked this book there was some confusion in it. In the book, Annie Sullivan, Helen's teacher, was often referred to as "Teacher" by Helen, but the thing that I was confused over was whether it was really what Helen called her, or was it just a nickname the author used.

When I first picked up this book I thought, this is going to be one boring book, but after I sat down and started reading it I really came to like it. So whether you are into reading biographies or not, I recommend this book, because it is an inspiring biography and life story.

J. Moss

I enjoyed reading the book, The World At Her Fingertips: The Story of Helen Keller, because I think that this book is informative. It has a lot of information based on Helen Keller that can help you learn a lot about her. I think it's not only an educational book but it can be fun to read during your spare time. Frankly, I found that Helen Keller was an extoradinary woman who succeded through life without letting her blindness and deafness take control over it. I learned a lot more about Helen Keller than I did before before. I think the author did a great job portraying and explaining Helen's lifestyle. With this book you will know and understand who Helen Keller was and how she went through life without ever giving up because of certain diseases.

I really did enjoy the story of Helen Keler. It was a very amusing
tale.Most people thought that the story was funny,but I did not.
When we had watched the movie last year Many persons had laughed at it.When they laughed it was like they were looking at me and laughing because I liked the story and also read the story.

I bought this book for my 9 year old daughter. She expressed interest in Helen Keller when they learned about her in school this year. However, as usual, all they taught her was she was blind and def and learn to communicate and went to school. I got this book because I wanted her to learn the whole truth about Ms. Keller. Her activism, her socialist views, and her membership in the Industrial Workers of the World. Few people know she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, graduating cum laude from Radcliffe College or what a dynamic writer she was. This is an excellent book for any child, as well as any adult, who wants to learn the entire story of this amazing and brilliant women's life.

As a young girl, I was told about the life of Helen Keller--the basics, nothing too detailed. My mother took me to see the Miracle Worker and I was amazed at Helen's capability to grasp something that she could not see or hear. This book gave me a new perspective on her life: her determination to succeed in her studies, her financial problems, her relationship Anne Sullivan, Alexander Graham Bell, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and her support for socialism. This book covers it all, and instills a new respect for Helen in the reader.