Helen Keller: Courage in the Dark

I enjoyed learning about Helen Keller's life from reading this book. I especially liked the part about how she turned into an excellent student from a bad student. It is amazing how she learned so many languages and travelled to so many places even though she could not see nor hear. I also liked the braille alphabet at the end of the book.

Because of my husband's work, we have unfortunately had to move around quite a bit. I was looking for English books for my 8 year old that would be at her reading level yet would be engaging. This fit the bill. My daughter eagerly read the book (and has read it several times now) and has begun to ask me many questions about Helen Keller, braille, blindness and deafness, etc. Marvellous! I was quite pleased with the results. I did not purchase this book as an historical treatise and so did not expect it to go at length into Helen Keller's life. But my daughter could relate to the story of a young girl who is presented with tremendous challenges and not only overcomes but succeeds in living a fruitful, rewarding and exemplary life. Because it is written in a "chewable" English, she didn't give up on the book. I found this book to be very positive. The "Step Into Reading" series on the whole I found to be very good. Historical topics tend to be chosen rather than "fairy" stories for content. The writing style is challenging but not out-of-reach. And the books are engaging. I do not hesitate to recommend this book for 6 - 8 year olds. Encouraging girls to read about positive female role models - - I do think Helen Keller would approve.

It was about a girl name Helen Keller. She was born on June,27 1880. She lived on a farm in Alabama. But one day she had a high fever and cause her to go blind and deaf. Her parents couldn't tell if she was hungry,tried, or thrist. When she wake up in the middle of the night she thought it was moring and cryed for her breakfast. Finally her parents ask for help then this young lady ask name Anne Sullivan. Anne was once almost blind but she had several operations to help her see again. At first Helen gave her problems. Whatever Helen did to Anne she would do the same to her. Later Helen learned to listen to Anne. She also learned how to do sign language to deaf people or people that can see and hear. Helen's parents were very proud of her because she learned how to do many things that a person like her couldn't do. Helen later went to college and became famous. Then she passed away before eieght-first birthday. I recommend this book because it tells about how a girl can do something with her life even though she's blind.

I first read this book to my daughter when she was 5 years old, and she has been fascinated with Helen Keller ever since. We have read and reread this book numerous times, and she never loses interest. This led to buying other Helen Keller books and an interest in learning sign language. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has a young child. It's a great book for getting a child interested in true stories/biographies!

I used this book with my second grade children in a unit on communications. They were fascinated by the story and learned a lot of new vocabulary words. The book's content was such that my children were able to try to imagine what it would be like to be deaf, blind, or both. The book was also a springboard for discussion on courage, perseverance, determination, and achieving goals, as it gave concrete examples of these abstract concepts. We also used the book to learn a little geography as we traced the path of Helen's travels on a map. It includes a picture of the Braille alphabet, which we used to write and "decode" messages, an exercise the kids loved! Contrary to the opinion of another reviewer, we really liked the artwork and the content. Obviously, I recommend this book.