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
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To Race the Wind
by Harold KrentsThe autobiography of Harold Krents, a young blind man who was a well-known lawyer in the early 1970's. Harold was the inspiration for the film and play, Butterflies Are Free.
Toothpaste and Railroad Tracks
by Kenneth JerniganThis 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."
Together
by Tom Sullivan and Betty WhiteFrom the book "If this dog loves me enough to lay down his life for my survival, how can I just give up?" One misstep on a mountain climbing trip plunged Brenden McCarthy into darkness by stealing his sight and everything else he held dear. But a too-independent guide dog named Nelson just might lead him back to life . . . if they don't kick him out of guide dog school first. Brenden can't accept the fact that he's lost his sight. And Nelson can't accept that he's been paired with someone other than his former master. Just as Brenden starts to live again, a devastating setback causes him to try to end it all. Brenden releases Nelson and sits down in the middle of an intersection. At that moment, everything changes when Nelson freely decides he'd rather join Brenden in death than live without him. Now they need a leap of faith and a love beyond words to make it.
Thunder Dog
by Michael Hingson and Larry King and Susy FloryFaith. Trust. Triumph.
"I trust Roselle with my life, every day. She trusts me to direct her. And today is no different, except the stakes are higher." ?Michael Hingson
First came the boom?the loud, deep, unapologetic bellow that seemed to erupt from the very core of the earth. Eerily, the majestic high-rise slowly leaned to the south. On the seventy-eighth floor of the World Trade Center's north tower, no alarms sounded, and no one had information about what had happened at 8:46 a.m. on September 11, 2001?what should have been a normal workday for thousands of people. All that was known to the people inside was what they could see out the windows: smoke and fire and millions of pieces of burning paper and other debris falling through the air.
Blind since birth, Michael couldn't see a thing, but he could hear the sounds of shattering glass, falling debris, and terrified people flooding around him and his guide dog, Roselle. However, Roselle sat calmly beside him. In that moment, Michael chose to trust Roselle's judgment and not to panic. They are a team. Thunder Dog allows you entry into the isolated, fume-filled chamber of stairwell B to experience survival through the eyes of a blind man and his beloved guide dog. Live each moment from the second a Boeing 767 hits the north tower, to the harrowing stairwell escape, to dodging death a second time as both towers fold into the earth.
It's the 9/11 story that will forever change your spirit and your perspective. Thunder Dog illumiates Hingson's lifelong determination to achieve parity in a sighted world, and how the rare trust between a man and his guide dog can inspire an unshakable faith in each one of us.
Through Different Eyes
by Tom PeyAt age 38, a childhood accident came back to haunt Tom Pey and took his sight. Follow his struggle with depression, job loss and alcoholism. Follow his success as he finds a deeper meaning in life.
They Shall See His Face
by Robert Banks and Linda BanksAmy Oxley Wilkinson was arguably the most widely known female Australian missionary in China and the West in the early 20th century. She was the great granddaughter of colonial chaplain Samuel Marsden and granddaughter of celebrated explorer John Oxley. After rescuing an abandoned blind boy, she founded an innovative Blind Boys School in Fuzhou which is now a major institution in Fujian Province. Her husband Dr George Wilkinson set up the city’s first hospital and introduced a program to address the pervasive curse of opium addiction.
Amy’s holistic and vocational approach to disability education brought her national and later international recognition. In 1920, the president of the new Chinese republic awarded her the Order of the Golden Grain, the highest honour a foreigner could receive. Two years later, Amy and the School’s brass band were presented to Queen Mary in England.
Amy’s story highlights the significance of Australia’s contribution to the development of early modern China and is a challenge to anyone committed to making their life count for others.
Teachers Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired
by Deborah KendrickThe 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.
Tapping the Charcoal
by Kenneth JerniganVarious 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.
Taking Hold
by Sally Hobart AlexanderA true story of the author's loss of vision as a young woman and of her adaptation to blindness.
Sugar Pop Moon
by John FlorioJersey Leo is the quintessential outsider--an albino of mixed race. Known as "Snowball" on the street, he makes a living as the bartender at a mob-run speakeasy in Prohibition-era Hell's Kitchen. Being neither black nor white, he has no group to call his own. His own mother abandoned him as a baby. And his father-a former boxing champ with his own secrets-disapproves of Jersey's work at a dive owned by one of New York's most notorious gangsters. So when he inadvertently purchases counterfeit moonshine ("sugar pop moon") with his boss's money-a potentially fatal mistake-he must go undercover to track down the bootlegger who took him in. The clues lead to Philadelphia, where he runs into a cleaver-swinging madman out for his femurs and a cold-blooded gangster holed up on a Christmas-tree farm. Now with a price on his head in two cities, Jersey seeks help from the only man he can trust, his father. As the two delve into the origins of the mysterious sugar pop moon, stunning secrets about Jersey's past come to light. To ensure his future, Jersey must face his past, even if it means that life will never return to normal.
Stumbling Blocks Before The Blind
by Edward WheatleyStumbling Blocks Before the Blind presents the first comprehensive exploration of a disability in the Middle Ages, drawing on the literature, history, art history, and religious discourse of England and France. It relates current theories of disability to the cultural and institutional constructions of blindness in the eleventh through fifteenth centuries, examining the surprising differences in the treatment of blind people and the responses to blindness in these two countries.
The book shows that pernicious attitudes about blindness were partially offset by innovations and ameliorations---social; literary; and, to an extent, medical---that began to foster a fuller understanding and acceptance of blindness. A number of practices and institutions in France, both positive and negative---blinding as punishment, the foundation of hospices for the blind, and some medical treatment---resulted in not only attitudes that commodified human sight but also inhumane satire against the blind in French literature, both secular and religious. Anglo-Saxon and later medieval England differed markedly in all three of these areas, and the less prominent position of blind people in society resulted in noticeably fewer cruel representations in literature. This book will interest students of literature, history, art history, and religion because it will provide clear contexts for considering any medieval artifact relating to blindness---a literary text, a historical document, a theological treatise, or a work of art.
For some readers, the book will serve as an introduction to the field of disability studies, an area of increasing interest both within and outside of the academy. Edward Wheatley is Surtz Professor of Medieval Literature at Loyola University, Chicago.
The Story of My Life
by Helen KellerEnriched 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.
The Stolen Light
by Ved MehtaThe author recounts his experiences as a blind college student, and tells how he came to write his first book.
Stand Up or Sit Out
by Anthony CandelaIn this memoir, Anthony Candela, a self-described "all-around regular guy," traverses a lifetime of challenges. Some of these are accidents of birth, like his poor eyesight and slow trek to blindness, and some are of his own making, like choosing to compete as a scholar-athlete. Infused with lots of New Yorkana, a touch of California, and a few related historical references, this memoir conveys that in any environment, life does not always follow a prescribed course. Moreover, as humans, all of us are imperfect. This includes people with disabilities who are often thought of as transcendent beings, but who should also be regarded as "all-around regular guys." Just like the rest of the human race, they often strive imperfectly to get through life.
In his descriptions, the author hopes that readers will understand a little more about the nuts and bolts of running and wrestling, not to mention skiing and scuba diving. The ups and downs of coping with life and progressive loss of eyesight and, by extraction, disability in general will be clearer. Readers will come away with a fuller appreciation of the ways people deal with challenges. In the end, we all have a choice whether to stand up or sit out.
The story related in these pages will occasionally give you cause to chuckle or even shed tears of sadness or joy. Above all else, it will enlighten you about why things happen the way they do. Ultimately, this memoir increases our understanding of what it means to be truly human. Perhaps after reading it, we will be kinder and gentler to each other. Most important, perhaps we will take it a little easier on ourselves.
Standing on One Foot
by Kenneth JerniganThis 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.
South of Surrender
by Laura KayeShe'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.
The Sound of the Walls
by Jacob TwerskyAs a small child in Poland, Jacob Twersky contracted an illness which left him almost totally blind. His parents hoped that a doctor in the United States could restore their son's sight, and this hope spurred them to emigrate in the mid-1920s. Twersky describes his childhood in Poland and Brooklyn, his years attending a resource room for blind children and a regular high school, and his eventual decision to enroll at a school for the blind. His struggle to accept his blindness is a theme throughout the book, threading its way through his college years, his struggle to find a teaching position, and his courtship and marriage.
Some Kind of Genius
by Janice Deblois and Antonia FelixFor everyone whose heart was touched by the movie Rain Man, here is the inspiring true story of an exceptional autistic savant whose musical gifts thrill audiences the world over. Ever since he was born--blind and weighing less than two pounds--Tony DeBlois has been defying the odds and wildly surpassing others' expectations. Tony's story will hold special appeal for all who have seen him on the Today s how and Entertainment Tonight, etc.
Soaring Into Greatness
by Gail HamiltonBorn ten weeks premature and requiring oxygen to survive, Gail Hamilton's first six weeks of life began within an incubator.
Six months later, doctors discovered that Gail had retrolental fibroplasia (RLF), an eye condition caused by the infusion of 100% pure oxygen. By age eleven, she was completely blind. Soaring into Greatness follows Gail's story as her outer visual world merged with her inner vision, forcing her to listen with her inner voice, to follow her heart and tune into her intuition.
Subjected to physical and emotional abuse, ostracized and oftentimes feeling alone, Gail's journey is one of the courage and perseverance it takes to find one's way through the darkness and soar.
"I believe my desire to fly must be bigger than my fear of falling. Vision is internal, not external, and is guided by my heart, not my eyes. In order to be free, to fly, I must want my dream, feel my dream, and believe that my dream will come true. Most importantly, I must live my dream. I am the creator of my destiny, the composer of my symphony, and I choose to live a life of greatness. " - Gail Hamilton
Snowfall (Novella)
by Mary Ann RiversMary Ann Rivers delivers the moving story of a woman who must confront a life-changing event, and the man who helps her view the world in a different light--just in time for Christmas. When Jenny Wright becomes involved in an online romance with someone she knows only as "C," she can't get enough of their erotic conversation. Flirting online helps Jenny temporarily escape confronting the innumerable changes to her life as she slowly loses her vision. It's easier having a relationship with someone behind a computer screen, someone with whom she doesn't have to share every intimate detail of her life. Jenny's occupational therapist, Evan Carlisle-Ford, is helping her prepare for the challenges ahead. But the forthright, trustworthy man can no longer ignore his growing attraction to his fiercely intelligent client. His only option is to end their professional relationship . . . and embrace a romantic one. Now Jenny must choose between the safe, anonymous "C"--or the flesh-and-blood Evan, whose heated kisses can melt snow faster than it can fall. And after receiving an unexpected present for Christmas, Jenny just may find the courage to let down her defenses and trust--in herself, and in the possibility of lasting love. Includes a special message from the editor, as well as an excerpt from another Loveswept title.
Sight Unseen
by Georgina KleegeThis 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.
Sight Unseen
by Ellyn KaschakSight 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.
She Walked by Faith Not by Sight
by Jenny PetersonJenny Peterson's life changed when she had a rare condition that left her legally blind and aware of God. Over the next thirty-three years she grew in her faith and allowed God to take control. With that control God led Jenny to doctors who not only saved her life but restored her sight.
Shades of Darkness
by George E. BrummellThe last image I ever saw--the instant before my eyes were seared by a landmine explosion in the jungles of Vietnam--is always with me. Many times during the past forty years, I have thought of myself as unlucky. But a soldier I met recently left me wondering. The meeting happened on a visit with a friend and fellow Vietnam veteran to Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C., where some of America's wounded warriors from Iraq and Afghanistan were being treated.