WHO WAS HELEN KELLER?

Who Was Helen Keller?

by Gare Thompson
Illustrated by Nancy Harrison
Published by Grosset & Dunlap
Copyright 2003
105 Pages
A Biography

I really enjoy reading about my home state, Alabama. Many interesting, historical events have occurred in this beautiful southern state. Alabama is also known for a number of people who have greatly impacted society, one of which is Helen Keller. She was born in the year 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Helen was an intelligent child whom succeeded on many levels. At age 2 she became extremely ill with a fever. Her family had no idea if their golden child was going to be able to pull through such a horrible illness. Well, Helen overcame the odds and beat the fever. Little did she know that she won the battle, but a much greater war was in her near future. 

Who Was Helen Keller? is a chapter book, therefore it has very few illustrations. The illustrator, Nancy Harrison, did do a fabulous job creating the cover photo. If you look at the colorful, hand drawn image above you can see that she made Helen's head very large. I think this was intentional to symbolize all of the intelligence that she had. Now the pictures inside the book are also hand drawn with pencils and/or ink. They are not in color like the front cover, but they do aid the text. The images highlight the main idea of each page. 

This biography would be ideal for a unit study about woman in history. One week the class could focus on Helen Keller. The teacher could read this chapter book to her students over the course of week. One activity that would work great with this story would be the study of sign language. The teacher could model basic words or the alphabet to the class as they try to communicate with one another using the new language. The teacher could also introduce the class to a variety of assistive  technology for students who are blind and deaf. I would be sure to include such things as braille and recording devices. Another activity the class may be interested in is creating a timeline which follows Helen Keller's 88 years of life. The students could work together to note all of the influential people which she met and worked with. The teacher could also be sure that the class includes her accomplishments over the years, and the books which she wrote. There is a timeline in the back of the book that the educator could use as a guideline. I do believe that this book is an easy read. I would suggest using this in an elementary classroom for grades 2-6. The complexity level of the work required can be manipulated for each of these grades.