Review: Very good
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 11, 2012
The Story of My Life is written while Helen Keller is in her second year at Radcliff, so it's really a story of how she became educated, not a story of her whole life. It was very interesting how she came to understand that words exist, or that things have words associated with them. Also very interesting that she has memories of things before she even had words for them.It's explaned in the book that she wants to act as "normal" as possible, so that's why she describes things in color, or describes what she "saw," even though she doesn't remember any colors and can't see anything. She wants to describe them in the most "normal" way possible.She also talks about how difficult it was to take college classes without any accomidations for disabilities. For example, she relied on her professors to learn the manuel alphabet and voluntarily give one-on-one instruction on their own time, and she was responsible for getting her own braille text books. But I was impressed with how much she was able to learn, through the help of dedicated individuals. (English, French, German, Latin, all as college prep before entering Radcliff. That's more than I'll ever know!)Her letters show the progression of her language and writing ability from her very first letter. I was really amazed at her words and especially her spelling at such a young age.It's really a story of hope, of how anyone can learn.