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Most of us have heard the story of Helen Keller. Born in the late 1th century, the young girl lost her hearing and her vision before she was 2 years old. Trapped in a dark world that she didn't understand, Helen was a terror to everyone around her. Unable to communicate with anyone, she would lash out in anger and frustration with everyone.
Enter Annie Sullivan. As a young girl, Annie had lived in a poor house before getting the help she needed at the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston. Eventually, Annie had the surgery she needed to restore her vision enough for her to read, write, and function as a seeing person would.
Trained in the ways of teaching young people with no sight or hearing to communicate with others, Annie was hired to work with Helen.
This book explores the relationship between Helen and Annie, and the hard, difficult work that went on in order to get Helen to understand how to communicate with other people.
In fabulous fashion, the author and illustrator take the reader through the early lives of Helen and Annie, switching seamlessly from past to present through the medium of a graphic novel.
I learned much about Annie Sullivan, and the methods she used to work with Helen. It is a fascinating look at the methods that were used at a time when children regularly lost their hearing and sight to sickness and fevers - a problem that we don't comprehend in our modern society with our fabulous drugs and the miracle of modern medicine. While I am not certain that I agree with the methods, I do see where they were effective when nobody knew what else to do.
Fascinating book. It was a fairly quick read, which was good, because the book was a page turner, and impossible to put down until the end.
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