This short Scholastic biography of Helen Keller is about as simplistic as you can get when it comes to recording the life of an American icon. It’s clearly designed for elementary-aged kids: the conversations and “suspense” are light, the font is large, and the illustrations are pretty childish. Still, this particular choice scratched two very important itches for our family when we read it together last week.

First, biography is a genre that’s been conspicuously absent from our family reading time for years. While I know the kids truly enjoyed the Little House series (which, though similar to biography, probably isn’t exactly), we’ve been focusing our attention mostly on books of adventure or humor and have left off “real-life” books for far too long. This first selection was so simple that we finished its 95 pages in just two evenings.

The kids loved this first foray into the world of biographies, and I feel like the pump might be primed for us now to pursue another biography in a similar vein. I’ve got a shelf full of them—probably 70 or more—ranging from missionary biographies to Presidential, sports heroes, and cultural icons. Could it be that my kids are ready for me to mix some classic missionary tales into our nightly reading repertoire without them complaining that the story is too boring to continue (as they did when we tried reading Heidi a few years ago)? I hope so!

Second—and this one is a bit more personal—we had the privilege of visiting a facility this summer that helps provide a safe living space for the deaf-blind community. Along with the social help that this facility and their personnel provide the residents is a church specially designed to reach and disciple folks who are both deaf and blind.

Before visiting the facility and seeing the church in action, I honestly had no clue how seeing-hearing people could communicate with deaf-blind folks. Amazingly, there were several methods employed, from writing letters into folks’ hands, signing into their hands, and a live-action Braille machine. Being able to watch this stuff in action really made Helen Keller’s story come alive for us, especially her very difficult experiences of learning to communicate with her teacher, Annie Sullivan.

This book is simple, and there are probably better options for Helen Keller’s life story out there, but it served a purpose well for us as a family. I’m hoping it’s a spark that eventually ignites a love for biographies in my kids later on, but we’ll have to see.

©2022 E.T.