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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A Dog Called Homeless
by Sarah LeanMy name is Cally Louise Fisher and I haven't spoken for thirty-one days. Talking doesn't always make things happen, however much you want them to. When Cally Fisher sees her dead mother, real as anything, no one believes her. So Cally stops talking - what's the point if no one is listening? The only other living soul who sees Cally's mum is a mysterious wolfhound who always seems to be there when her mum appears. But without a voice, how will Cally convince anyone that her mum is still with them, and how will she ever persuade her Dad that the huge silver-grey dog is their last link with her? An outstandingly assured debut novel from a sparkling new talent.
Winner of the Schneider Family Book Award
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.
The Visitors
by Rebecca MascullImagine if you couldn't seecouldn't hearcouldn't speak...Then one day somebody took your hand and opened up the world to you.Adeliza Golding is a deafblind girl, born in late Victorian England on her father's hop farm. Unable to interact with her loving family, she exists in a world of darkness and confusion; her only communication is with the ghosts she speaks to in her head, who she has christened the Visitors. One day she runs out into the fields and a young hop-picker, Lottie, grabs her hand and starts drawing shapes in it. Finally Liza can communicate.Her friendship with her teacher and with Lottie's beloved brother Caleb leads her from the hop gardens and oyster beds of Kent to the dusty veldt of South Africa and the Boer War, and ultimately to the truth about the Visitors.
Can You Feel the Thunder? (First Edition)
by Lynn E. McelfreshThirteen-year-old Mic Parsons struggles with mixed feelings about his deaf and blind sister while at the same time he makes his way through the turmoils of junior high.
In Shadows
by Chandler McgrewIn a small Maine valley, thirteen-year-old Pierce Morin, born blind and deaf, possesses a terrifying gift: he can hear evil whispering-and knows an elusive, deadly force is stalking the people he loves. . . .
Detective Jake Crowley has run far away from his Maine hometown. But a bizarre shootout in Galveston, Texas, finally draws him home: to a woman he can barely face, to the unsolved mystery of his mother's murder, to a family curse and a valley that's fallen under the spell of a serial killer. . . .
For Jake, redemption lies in unlocking Pierce's gifts and hoping the boy can show him the way to stop the terrors that plague him. But while young Pierce can begin the search, only Jake can finish it-by looking evil in the eye and claiming both their birthrights. . . .
Deaf-Blind Infants and Children
by John Mcinnes and J. A. TreffryThis is a comprehensive reference guide for teachers, parents, and paraprofessionals working or living with children who are both deaf and blind. It provides day-to-day guidance and suggestions about techniques and methods for assessing children with multi-sensory deprivation, and for devising programs to help them cope.
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.
Miss Spitfire
by Sarah MillerAnnie Sullivan was little more than a half-blind orphan with a fiery tongue when she arrived at Ivy Green in 1887. Desperate for work, she’d taken on a seemingly impossible job—teaching a child who was deaf, blind, and as ferocious as any wild animal. But if anyone was a match for Helen Keller, it was the girl who’d been nicknamed Miss Spitfire. In her efforts to reach Helen’s mind, Annie lost teeth to the girl’s raging blows, but she never lost faith in her ability to triumph. Told in first person, Annie Sullivan’s past, her brazen determination, and her connection to the girl who would call her Teacher are vividly depicted in this powerful novel.
Breaking the Silence
by Jo MilneImagine for a moment that you have never heard the voices of those you love, the music on the radio, the sound of birdsong at dawn nor the persistent passing traffic on the road you walk down. Now imagine that the lips that you have watched moving, the faces that you have smiled at, the words that you read in front of you all slowly start to disappear too. It's hard to comprehend isn't it?Jo Milne had already lived a lifetime surrounded by silence, profoundly deaf from birth, when she began to lose her sight. Just before turning thirty, Jo was diagnosed with Usher Syndrome, a rare genetic and progressive condition that will one day rob her of her sight altogether.Although at this lowest ebb, Jo suffered from deep depression, she has always been determined to live her life to the full. Jo has never let her disabilities affect the way she embraces life however there was always so much that she was missing. In 2014 she made a life-changing decision to undergo major surgery. She had cochlear implants fitted allowing her to hear for the first time. Every moment of Jo's days since the operation has become a journey of discovery.She has been able to hear the voice of her own mother who has stood by her and helped her through some of her darkest moments. She has heard birds sing, people chatting and the sound of children laughing. She is embarking on an incredible journey through four missed generations of music - from the hymns she missed in school assembly to sweeping orchestral performances, from the Beatles and Rolling Stones to the music of this very moment and everything in between. Breaking the Silence is a remarkable and beautifully written memoir that will serve as an inspiration to everyone who reads it. By turns, heart-breaking and heart-warming, it is the incredibly uplifting life-story of a woman who refused to give up hope and always lives life with a smile upon her face.
The Story of Esther Costello
by Nicholas MonsarratEsther Costello, born on a peasant farm in Ireland, became a deaf-blind-mute after an explosion. She was discovered and saved from her predicament by Mrs. Bannister, a wealthy American. Mrs. Bannister rescued her, and brought her to Boston shortly after the 2nd World War. Mrs. Bannister taught Esther how to communicate by writing letters in her palm. Esther became an overnight success in America and around the world. Then in walks Mr. Bannister, the separated husband, but interested in how Esther can be used as a money-making machine. What happens to Esther and the Bannisters?
Beyond the Miracle Worker
by Kim E. NielsenAfter many years, historian and Helen Keller expert Kim Nielsen realized that she, along with other historians and biographers, had failed Anne Sullivan Macy. While Macy is remembered primarily as Helen Keller's teacher and mythologized as a straightforward educational superhero, the real story of this brilliant, complex, and misunderstood woman, who described herself as a "badly constructed human being," has never been completely told.
Beyond the Miracle Worker, the first biography of Macy in nearly fifty years, complicates the typical Helen-Annie "feel good" narrative in surprising ways. By telling the life from Macy's perspective-not Keller's-the biography is the first to put Macy squarely at the center of the story. It presents a new and fascinating tale about a wounded but determined woman and her quest for a successful, meaningful life.
Born in 1866 to poverty-stricken Irish immigrants, the parentless and deserted Macy suffered part of her childhood in the Massachusetts State Almshouse at Tewksbury. Seeking escape, in love with literature, and profoundly stubborn, she successfully fought to gain an education at the Perkins School for the Blind. As an adult, Macy taught Keller, helping the girl realize her immense potential, and Macy's intimate friendship with Keller remained powerful throughout their lives.
Yet as Macy floundered with her own blindness, ill health, and depression, as well as a tumultuous and triangulated marriage, she came to lean on her former student, emotionally, physically, and economically. Based on privately held primary source material, including materials at both the American Foundation for the Blind and the Perkins School for the Blind, Beyond the Miracle Worker is revelatory and absorbing, unraveling one of the best known-and least understood-friendships of the twentieth century.
Give Me a Sign, Helen Keller!
by Peter Roop and Connie RoopIn this book, you will find out all about Helen Keller, before she made history.
Your Child's Hearing Loss
by Debby Waldman and Jackson RoushFrom a mother whose daughter has hearing loss, and an audiologist with more than twenty-five years of experience with deaf and hard-of-hearing children and their families, this comprehensive volume offers parents what they need to know from day-to-day practical solutions to technical information to emotional support.
Vintage Sacks
by Oliver SacksOliver Sacks' empathetic understanding and compelling storytelling ability have turned his accounts of his patients and his own life into literature, as evidenced in "Uncle Tungsten," "Stinks and Bangs," and "Cannery Row" from Uncle Tungsten; the Foreword and "Rose R." from Awakenings; "A Deaf World" from Seeing Voices; and excerpts from "Island Hopping" and "Pingelap" from The Island of the Colorblind.
Independence without Sight or Sound
by Dona SauerburgerSuggestions for working with deaf-blind adults by an expert on orientation and mobility.
Helen Keller
by Anne SchraffBiography of the young deaf-blind girl who became a famous writer. Guided by Time Magazine's list of 100 most influential people, this series biographies focuses on the leaders, scientists, and icons who shaped our world. Each biography includes a glossary, timeline, and illustrations.
The Story of Annie Sullivan, Helen Keller's Teacher
by George SeldenA biography of the woman who taught a deaf-blind girl how to communicate with others.
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.
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.
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.
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.?
Who Was Helen Keller?
by Gare ThompsonAt age two, Helen Keller became deaf and blind. She lived in a world of silence and darkness and she spent the rest of her life struggling to break through it. But with the help of teacher Annie Sullivan, Helen learned to read, write, and do many amazing things.
The Persistence of Vision
by John Varley
The Persistence of Vision
With an Introduction by Algis Budrys
These nine stories show the best work of the decade's most exciting new writer of science fiction. His Quantum novel The Ophiuchi Hotline established the "Eight Worlds" setting of many of these tales--a bizarre future in which genetic engineering, sex changes, and arcane pleasures and trades are commonplace.
The title story, nominated this year for a Nebula award by the Science Fiction Writers of America, is a haunting treatment of communication beyond our normal senses, an unusually enriching and absorbing work.
The last tale in the volume, the one the book is named after, is particularly memorable. It features a man who becomes part of a colony of deaf-mute-blind people, who have developed a highly spiritual means of communicating.
Take, for instance, the plight of the hero of "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank." All he wanted was a relaxed weekend as a lion; but a meddlesome kid switched a circuit, and his psyche was trapped inside a computer. . . . And what creative spirit wouldn't envy the artist in "The Phantom of Kansas" who composes storms?
Most of us feel pretty negatively about skyjackers, but "Air Raid" shows an unexpected rationale for it; "Retrograde Summer," "The Black Hole Passes," and "In the Bowl" are (among other strange things) unique and confusing love stories; "In the Hall of the Martian Kings" is a new and enthralling twist on the planetary castaways theme; and "Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance" shows what a Tin Pan Alley of the centuries to come might be like.
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.
Helen Keller
by Katharine E. WilkieFocusing on her childhood years, this biography is about Helen Keller who overcame her handicaps with the help of her teacher Anne Sullivan.