Special Collections
Deaf-Blind Special Collection
Description: A collection featuring biographies, fiction and non-fiction by and about members of the deaf-blind community. For books by and about members of the deaf community, visit: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/collection/249852 #disability
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Of Such Small Differences
by Joanne GreenbergIn this poetic novel, 25-year-old John Moon, who is deaf-blind, has a job in a sheltered workshop and lives within a small community of friends who are deaf or deaf-blind. Life for John is transformed when he falls in love with Leda, a young actress working as a driver for the workshop. As their relationship develops John learns about his own capacity for joy and suffering, and struggles to find his place in the world of people who hear and se. The novel is written from John's point of view and attempts to convey his perceptions as a deaf-blind person.
Independent Living Without Sight and Hearing
by Richard KinneyThis is a wonderful resource for blind-deaf individuals and those who interact with them. It covers such topics as communication methods, independence at home, telephones, travel hints and much more.
Walking Free
by Rosezelle Boggs-Qualls and Darryl C. GreeneBiography of a deaf-blind woman who spent 18 years isolated in a mental hospital before gaining her freedom, earning a college degree and working as a social worker in northeast Ohio. The co-authors are a deaf social worker and blind pastor.
Guidelines
by Theresa B. SmithHow does deaf-blindness affect communication? How does one guide a person who is deaf and blind? How does all of this affect the role of the interpreter etc.?
Helen Keller
by Johanna HurwitzWhen a childhood illness leaves her blind and deaf, Helen Keller's life seems hopeless indeed. But her indomitable will and the help of a devoted teacher empower Helen to triumph over incredible adversity. This amazing true story is finally brought to the beginner reader level.
Helen Keller
by Carol GhiglieriHelen Keller was deaf and blind, but went on to learn and teach and advocate. Correlate with Guided Reading Levels J. For use with Grades K-2.
Bird in the Hand
by Paul HostovskyFrom the book:
Sighted Guide Technique at the
Fine Arts Work Center
In your hands the poems in their Braille versions grow longer, thicker, whiter.
They are giving themselves goose bumps, they are that good. Still they are only as good as themselves.
We are two
people wide
for the purposes of this exercise.
Remembering that is my technique, it's that
simple. Remembering it well is success.
Success is simply paying attention.
Like a poem with very long lines
we appear a little wider, move a little slower
than most of the community of haiku poets
leaping past us with a few right words.
A word about doors: they open
inward or outward, turn
clockwise or counterclockwise, depending
on something that you and I
will probably never grasp.
Doorknobs dance away
and the songs of the common house sparrow
who is everywhere, you say, play in the eaves
as we pass together through the door
to the world,
you holding my elbow,
your elbow and mine making two
triangles trawling the air
for the tunneling, darting, juking, ubiquitous brown birds.
Helen Keller
by Leslie GarrettTells the inspirational tale of this spirited crusader. In this groundbreaking new series, DK brings together fresh voices and DK design values to give readers the most information-packed, visually exciting biographies on the market today. Full-color photographs of people, places, and artifacts, definitions of key words, and sidebars on related subjects add dimension and relevance to stories of famous lives that students will love to read.
Helen Keller (Rebel Lives)
by Helen Keller and John DavisA different portrayal of Keller, who is usually remembered for her work aiding blind and deaf-blind people.
Deaf and blind herself from the age of 19 months, Keller did indeed devote her adult life to helping those similarly afflicted - she was also a crusading Socialist, championing the poor and oppressed from all walks of life and leading a fight against the less obvious evil of social blindness.
John Davis has collected her political writing and speeches, including her arguments for women's suffrage, her opposition to the world wars and support for Eugene V. Debs.
Invisible
by Ruth SilverRuth Silver's young life was challenged with vision and hearing loss. Inspired by her own experiences and challenges, she founded the Center for Deaf-Blind Persons in Milwaukee, a nonprofit agency dedicated to helping others living with the double disability of deaf-blindness. Ruth's story demonstrates how a resilient spirit can propel a profoundly disabled person forward toward a happy, productive life.
Optimism, and Strike Against War
by Helen KellerAn essay on optimism by the famous author, activist, and lecturer, as well as a speech called Strike Against War that she gave at Carnegie Hall in New York City on January 5, 1916 in opposition to World War I.
The Song of the Stone Wall
by Helen KellerAn unrhymed poem, fashioned from traditional style, first published in 1910 in which a rough, enduring old stone wall, that winds over hill and meadow, becomes a symbol of New England history. Its importance lies in the meaning it held for Helen Keller, and the strength she gained from its existence.
Helen Keller
by Richard TamesThe life of Helen Keller told in this biography also contains brief historical highlights that help illuminate certain concepts discussed in the book.
The Cloak of Dreams
by Béla BalázsIntriguing fairy tales by the librettist of Béla Bartók’s opera Bluebeard’s CastleA man is changed into a flea and must bring his future parents together in order to become human again. A woman convinces a river god to cure her sick son, but the remedy has mixed consequences. A young man must choose whether to be close to his wife's soul or body. And two deaf mutes transcend their physical existence in the garden of dreams. Strange and fantastical, these fairy tales of Béla Balázs (1884-1949), Hungarian writer, film critic, and famous librettist of Bluebeard's Castle, reflect his profound interest in friendship, alienation, and Taoist philosophy. Translated and introduced by Jack Zipes, one of the world's leading authorities on fairy tales, The Cloak of Dreams brings together sixteen of Balázs's unique and haunting stories.Written in 1921, these fairy tales were originally published with twenty images drawn in the Chinese style by painter Mariette Lydis, and this new edition includes a selection of Lydis's brilliant illustrations. Together, the tales and pictures accentuate the motifs and themes that run throughout Balázs's work: wandering protagonists, mysterious woods and mountains, solitude, and magical transformation. His fairy tales express our deepest desires and the hope that, even in the midst of tragedy, we can transcend our difficulties and forge our own destinies.Unusual, wondrous fairy tales that examine the world's cruelties and twists of fate, The Cloak of Dreams will entertain, startle, and intrigue.
Independence without Sight or Sound
by Dona SauerburgerSuggestions for working with deaf-blind adults by an expert on orientation and mobility.
Beauty is a Verb
by Michael Northen and Sheila Black and Jennifer BartlettChosen by the American Library Association as a 2012 Notable Book in Poetry.
Beauty is a Verb is a ground-breaking anthology of disability poetry, essays on disability, and writings on the poetics of both. Crip Poetry. Disability Poetry. Poems with Disabilities. This is where poetry and disability intersect, overlap, collide and make peace.
Sheila Black is a poet and children's book writer. In 2012, Poet Laureate Philip Levine chose her as a recipient of the Witter Bynner Fellowship.
Disability activist Jennifer Bartlett is a poet and critic with roots in the Language school.
Michael Northen is a poet and the editor of Wordgathering: A Journal of Poetics and Disability.
A Picture Book of Helen Keller
by David A. AdlerA brief biography of the woman who overcame her handicaps of being both blind and deaf.
Helen Keller's Teacher
by Margaret DavidsonFor twenty- year- old Annie Sullivan, life had been one hardship after another. All alone and half blind, she grew up in a poorhouse with only her pride and determination to sustain her. Even though the odds were against her, she would never allow her handicaps to defeat her. That is until she meets Helen Keller. The world is a dark and silent prison for little Helen. She cannot see or hear or speak. To Annie falls the incredible task of teaching Helen how to read, to write - to live a full life. Is Annie up to this incredible challenge? Can she dare to dream of accomplishing a miracle? This is the true story of Annie's and Helen's courage and determination to succeed.
A Girl Named Helen Keller
by Margo LundellRead about the life of a blind and deaf girl who brought hope to other people in the world.
For Pete's Sake
by Linda VervilleChelsea can't figure out what is wrong with Pete the new pup. He runs into things, can't tell the difference between night and day, can't understand he is getting in trouble. Eventuallly the family discovers that Pete is blind and deaf, and then they realize he is special in spite of his disabilites. For young kids and old too.
Deaf-Blind Reality
by Scott M. StoffelMost stories about disabled people are written for the sake of being inspirational. These stories tend to focus on some achievement, such as sports or academics, but rarely do they give a true and complete view of the challenges individuals must deal with on a daily basis. For example: How does a deaf-blind person interact with hearing-sighted people at a family reunion? How does she shop for groceries? What goes through his mind when he enters a classroom full of non-handicapped peers? These aren't questions you are likely to find answers to while reading that incredible tale of success. They are, however, issues that a deaf-blind person wishes others understood. Deaf-Blind Reality: Living the Life explores what life is really like for persons with a combination of vision and hearing loss, and in a few cases, other disabilities as well. Editor Scott M. Stoffel presents extensive interviews with 12 deaf-blind individuals, including himself, who live around the world, from Missouri to New Zealand, Louisiana to South Africa, and Ohio to England. These contributors each describe their families' reactions and the support they received; their experiences in school and entering adulthood; and how they coped with degeneration, ineffective treatments, and rehabilitation. Each discusses their personal education related to careers, relationships, and communication, including those with cochlear implants. Deaf-Blind Reality offers genuine understanding of the unspectacular but altogether daunting challenges of daily life for deaf-blind people.
Child of the Silent Night
by Edith Fisher HunterThe story of Laura Bridgman, the first deaf and blind child to be taught to communicate with the outside world, some fifty years before Helen Keller. It covers her life before she learned to communicate with the Manual Alphabet and briefly tells about her life afterward.
Deliverance from Jericho
by Bruce AtchisonImagine being a disabled child, hastily sent to a boarding school hundreds of miles from home, and being kept there for months at a time. This was the fate of most physically and mentally impaired students half a century ago. Intellectuals and government officials once believed that the best way to educate “handicapped youngsters” was to segregate them from the able-bodied population, concentrating those pupils into large institutions.
Deliverance from Jericho: Six Years in a Blind School is the story of Bruce Atchison, one such child. Shuttled between a dysfunctional family and an uncaring asylum, his feelings and experiences are related here in a candid fashion. Through his partially-sighted eyes, readers are given a glimpse beyond the manicured lawns and impressive facades into the daily life of Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and Blind.
The author describes how he and his classmates learned Braille, used an abacus for arithmetic, and played sports, educational aspects which are not generally known to the public. Apart from those differences, school life was basically the same as in other institutes. Jericho had its bullies, its cliques, its out-of-touch administrators, and its deplorable food.
Listen for the Bus
by Patricia McmahonThe story follows David a boy who is both blind and deaf as he experiences the world around him at home and in kindergarten.
From Homer to Helen Keller
by Richard Slayton FrenchFrom Homer to Helen Keller, Homer stands for the greatest achievement of the blind in the times antecedent to their systematic education. He stands for all those bards, many of them blind or blinded, creators of literature and makers of our language, who through ballads, always of great vigor and sometimes of surpassing beauty, have handed down to us the glorious traditions of far-off heroic times.
Miss Keller stands for the supreme achievement of education. The blind claim her, but the deaf can claim her, too, and modern education can claim her more than either--and all humanity claims her with the best claim of all. For she is the epitome of all that is best in humanity, all that is most spiritual; and all this through conscious aim and directed effort, through education in its best sense.