Special Collections

Blindness and Visual Impairment Special Collection

Description: A collection featuring biographies, memoirs, fiction and non-fiction by and about members of the blind community. #disability


Showing 101 through 125 of 205 results
 

C'mon Papa

by Ryan Knighton

Ryan Knighton's humorous and perceptive tales of fatherhood take us inside an unusual new family, one bound by its father's particular darkness and light.

C'mon Papa is Ryan Knighton's heartbreaking and hilarious voyage through the first year of fatherhood. Becoming a father is a stressful, daunting rite of passage to be sure, but for a blind father, the fears are unimaginably heightened. Ryan will have to find novel ways to adapt to nearly every aspect of parenting: the most basic skills are nearly impossible to contemplate, let alone master. And how will Ryan get to know this pre-verbal bundle of coos and burps when he can't see her smile, or look into her eyes for hints of the person to come? But this is no pity party, and Ryan has no time for sentimentality.

Tackling these hurdles with grace and humour, Ryan is determined to do his part -- and this is where the fun starts. From holding his daughter as she wails into the night to their first nerve-wracking walk to the cafe, no activity between father and daughter is without its pitfalls. In his struggle to "see" Tess, Ryan reimagines the relationship between father and child during that first chaotic year.

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Memoir

Sight Unseen

by Georgina Kleege

This elegantly written book offers an unexpected and unprecidented accout of blindness and sight. Legally blind since the age of eleven, Georgina Kleege draws on her experiences to offer a detailed testimony of visual impairment - both her own view of the world and the world's view of the blind. "I hope to turn the reader's gaze outward, to say not only 'Here's what I see' but also "here's what you see,' to show what's both unique and universal," Kleege writes.

Kleege describes the negative social status of the blind, analyzes stereotypes of the blind hat have been perpetuated by movies, and discusses how blindness has been portrayed in literature. She vividly conveys the visual experience of someone with severely impaired sight and explains what she cannot (and how her inability to achieve eye contact - in a society that prizes that form of connection - has affected her).

Finally she tells of the various ways she reads, and the freedom she felt when she stopped concealing her blindness and acquired skills, such as reading braille, as part of a new blind identity.

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Memoir

Blind Rage

by Georgina Kleege

The author writes letters to the late Helen Keller to explore different aspects of her life.

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Non-Fiction

Blind Rage

by Georgina Kleege

As a young blind girl, Georgina Kleege repeatedly heard the refrain, “Why can’t you be more like Helen Keller?” Kleege’s resentment culminates in her book Blind Rage: Letters to Helen Keller, an ingenious examination of the life of this renowned international figure using 21st-century sensibilities.

Kleege’s absorption with Keller originated as an angry response to the ideal of a secular saint, which no real blind or deaf person could ever emulate. However, her investigation into the genuine person revealed that a much more complex set of characters and circumstances shaped Keller’s life.

Blind Rage employs an adroit form of creative nonfiction to review the critical junctures in Keller’s life. The simple facts about Helen Keller are well-known: how Anne Sullivan taught her deaf-blind pupil to communicate and learn; her impressive career as a Radcliffe graduate and author; her countless public appearances in various venues, from cinema to vaudeville, to campaigns for the American Foundation for the Blind. But Kleege delves below the surface to question the perfection of this image.

Through the device of her letters, she challenges Keller to reveal her actual emotions, the real nature of her long relationship with Sullivan, with Sullivan’s husband, and her brief engagement to Peter Fagan.

Kleege’s imaginative dramatization, distinguished by her depiction of Keller’s command of abstract sensations, gradually shifts in perspective from anger to admiration.

Blind Rage criticizes the Helen Keller myth for prolonging an unrealistic model for blind people, yet it appreciates the individual who found a practical way to live despite the restrictions of her myth.

Date Added: 12/19/2018


Category: Non-Fiction

The Community of the Blind

by Yoon Hough Kim

Dr. Kim has investigated the validity of the widely-held view that while there are a large number of blind persons whose social lives are centered in the mainstream, that is with sighted persons, there are an equally large number of blind persons whose social lives are restricted mainly to other blind persons.

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Non-Fiction

Teachers Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired

by Deborah Kendrick

The first volume in the Jobs That Matter series, Teachers Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired profiles 18 visually impaired individuals who have successfully fulfilled their dreams of becoming teachers. Included in this volume are educators of different ages, ethnic backgrounds, and geographic locations across the United States, who work in the classroom in ways that are both surprisingly similar and dramatically different from one another. These engaging individuals demonstrate how visually impaired teachers can be effective in their jobs and achieve classroom success and satisfaction. Designed to inspire young people who are blind or visually impaired, their families, and the professionals who work with them about careers that are available, the books in the Jobs That Matter series are meant to expand readers' horizons by showing a wide range of employment possibilities.

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Non-Fiction

Jobs to be Proud of

by Deborah Kendrick

12 case studies of blind people and their occupations.

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Non-Fiction

Business Owners Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired

by Deborah Kendrick

The second title in the exciting Jobs That Matter series written by an award-winning blind journalist, Business Owners Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired demonstrates the wide range of careers and talents that can be pursued by persons with visual impairments. Each profile features a successful individual who has accomplished his or her dream of business ownership and who shares important insights. From a lawyer and an accountant to a florist and a gourmet cook, the range of engaging stories told will inspire young adults with visual impairments and the parents, teachers, and counselors who advise them.

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Non-Fiction

How Late It Was, How Late

by James Kelman

A raw, wry vision of human survival in a bureaucratic world, How Late It Was, How Late opens one Sunday morning in Glasgow, Scotland, as Sammy, an ex-convict with a penchant for shoplifting, awakens in a lane and tries to remember the two-day drinking binge that landed him there. Then, things only get worse. Sammy gets in a fight with some soldiers, lands in jail, and discovers that he is completely blind. His girlfriend disappears, the police probe him endlessly, and his stab at Disability Compensation embroils him in the Kafkaesque red tape of the welfare system.

A masterpiece of black humor, subtle political parody, and Scottish lower-class vernacular.

Man Booker Prize winner

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Fiction

The Story of My Life

by Helen Keller

Enriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentary. Each book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their work.Left blind, deaf, and mute after an illness in infancy, Helen Keller overcame her disabilities with the help of Anne Sullivan, her inspired teacher. Her classic autobiography, first published in 1903, covers her first twenty-two years, including the memorable moment at a water pump when she first made the connection between the word "water" and the cold liquid flowing over her hand. She also discusses her friendships with Oliver Wendell Holmes and other notables, her education at Radcliffe, her joy at learning to speak, and above all, her extraordinary relationship with her teacher. This deeply moving memoir, full of love and compassion for others, offers an unforgettable portrait of one of the twentieth century's most remarkable women. Enriched Classics enhance your engagement by introducing and explaining the historical and cultural significance of the work, the author's personal history, and what impact this book had on subsequent scholarship. Each book includes discussion questions that help clarify and reinforce major themes and reading recommendations for further research. Read with confidence.

Date Added: 03/23/2018


Category: Memoir

Now I See You

by Nicole C. Kear

At nineteen years old, Nicole C. Kear's biggest concern is choosing a major--until she walks into a doctor's office in midtown Manhattan and gets a life-changing diagnosis. She is going blind, courtesy of an eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa, and has only a decade or so before Lights Out. Instead of making preparations as the doctor suggests, Kear decides to carpe diem and make the most of the vision she has left. She joins circus school, tears through boyfriends, travels the world, and through all these hi-jinks, she keeps her vision loss a secret.

When Kear becomes a mother, just a few years shy of her vision's expiration date, she amends her carpe diem strategy, giving up recklessness in order to relish every moment with her kids. Her secret, though, is harder to surrender - and as her vision deteriorates, harder to keep hidden. As her world grows blurred, one thing becomes clear: no matter how hard she fights, she won't win the battle against blindness. But if she comes clean with her secret, and comes to terms with the loss, she can still win her happy ending.

Told with humor and irreverence, Now I See You is an uplifting story about refusing to cower at life's curve balls, about the power of love to triumph over fear. But, at its core, it's a story about acceptance: facing the truths that just won't go away, and facing yourself, broken parts and all.

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Memoir

South of Surrender

by Laura Kaye

She's the only one who can see through his golden boy façade to the broken god within...Chrysander Notos, Supreme God of the South Wind and Summer, is on a mission: save Eurus from his death sentence, and prove his troubled brother can be redeemed. But Eurus fights back, triggering vicious summer storms that threaten the mortal realm, dangerously drain Chrys, and earn the ire of the Olympic gods who ordered Eurus dead.Laney Summerlyn refuses to give up her grandfather's horse farm, despite her deteriorating vision. More than ever, she needs the organized routine of her life at Summerlyn Stables, until a ferocious storm brings an impossible-and beautiful-creature crashing down from the heavens.Injured while fighting Eurus, Chrys finds himself at the mercy of a mortal woman whose compassion and acceptance he can't resist. As they surrender to the passion flaring between them, immortal enemies close in, forcing Chrys to choose between his brother and the only woman who's ever loved the real him.

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Fiction

Sight Unseen

by Ellyn Kaschak

Sight Unseen reveals the cultural and biological realities of race, gender, and sexual orientation from the perspective of the blind. Through ten case studies and dozens of interviews, Ellyn Kaschak taps directly into the phenomenology of race, gender, and sexual orientation among blind individuals, along with the everyday epistemology of vision. Kaschak's work reveals not only how the blind create systems of meaning out of cultural norms but also how cultural norms inform our conscious and unconscious interactions with others regardless of our physical ability to see.

Date Added: 03/21/2018


Category: Non-Fiction

Mexico by Touch

by Larry P. Johnson

My memories of Mexico are a montage of flavors, fragrances, sounds and sensations.

There's nothing that can compare with the smell and taste of freshly made corn tortillas just before the mid-day meal. Nor are there many sounds more soothing and ethereal than the rippling melodies of a neighborhood marimba band playing a dawn serenade.

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Memoir

When The Blizzard Blows

by Kenneth Jernigan

This is the seventh book in the Kernel Book Series. In these books, people who are blind share incidents from their lives and tell how they coped with them. Some are serious; some are humorous; all are thought-provoking. Other books in this series are available from Bookshare.

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Non-Fiction

What Color is the Sun

by Kenneth Jernigan

A Kernel Book, this has life stories from 14 blind people.

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Non-Fiction

Wall-To-Wall Thanksgiving

by Kenneth Jernigan

This is the thirteenth book in the Kernel Series. Its chapters are: Don't Throw the Nickel Boy Was I Bamboozled Lessons from the Charcoal Pit Concerning Books, Lawn Mowers, and Bus Rides Children, Fruitcake, and Rectangles The Wall-to-Wall Thanksgiving Meeting the Challenge Daddy Read Me Walking the Balance Beam Big Enough to Ride the Bike and, of course, Dr. Jernigan's introduction, which ties together the featured vignettes. Other books in this series are available from Bookshare.

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Non-Fiction

Toothpaste and Railroad Tracks

by Kenneth Jernigan

This is the eighth book in the Kernel Books Series--a series of books in which people who are blind tell about life situations and how they coped with them. "What do toothpaste and railroad tracks have in common? Just about the same that axes and law books do--nothing and everything. They are the building blocks of the routine of daily existence. In a very real sense they are the essence of humanity itself. When I was younger (maybe 40 years ago), there was a popular song called "Little Things Mean a Lot." It dealt with what the title implies, but its message was much more than that. It was that each little incident (relatively unimportant in and of itself) combines with all of the other trivial events that are constantly happening to us to form the pattern of our lives. It is not the major events but the recurring details that make us what we are--that determine whether we will succeed or fail, be happy and productive or sad and miserable. Other books in this series are available from Bookshare."

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Non-Fiction

Tapping the Charcoal

by Kenneth Jernigan

Various individuals tell their story of overcoming blindness and becoming productive employed members of society. Their experiences are an encouragement to all of us who must overcome challenges.

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Non-Fiction

Standing on One Foot

by Kenneth Jernigan

This is book six of the Kernel Series. The ways of overcoming challenges that face individuals who want a normal life in spite of blindness is revealed in these short true-to-life stories.

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Non-Fiction

Old Dogs and New Tricks

by Kenneth Jernigan

The tenth book in the Kernel Book Series contains these vignettes: Editor's Introduction Old Dogs and New Tricks The Sliding Board Tending to My Knitting Roller Coasters Serving Communion and Loving Elizabeth. Other books in this series are available from Bookshare.

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Non-Fiction

Kenneth Jernigan

by Kenneth Jernigan

Compiled writings of Dr. Kenneth Jernigan with editorial introduction and notes

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Memoir

Gray Pancakes and Gold Horses

by Kenneth Jernigan

How do blind children learn the details of the hundreds of small daily acts that sighted children pick up without ever even knowing they have done it? A blind boy sits in a farm house on a summer night and wonders which way to shake his head to mean yes and no. He guesses and loses, and his mother's feelings are hurt. I know, for I was that boy.

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Non-Fiction

Beginnings and Blueprints

by Kenneth Jernigan

This is a motivational book showing that blind individuals can live productive lives doing the things that sighted people do and even succeed at it!

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Non-Fiction

As The Twig Is Bent

by Kenneth Jernigan

"Table of Contents To Park Or Not To Park What Lynden Has To Hear How Different It Might Have Been How Different It Is Do You Want To Go To The Store, Ted? Partially Sighted, Really Blind Advice From A Seven-Year-Old A Matter Of Attitude A Purchasing Alliance They Didn't Want Me To Go To School Ladies And Gentlemen Of The Jury Sight Unseen To Light A Candle With Mathematics Supremacy." Other books in this series are available from Bookshare.

Date Added: 03/28/2018


Category: Non-Fiction


Showing 101 through 125 of 205 results