Helen Keller, the reader.

During a recent trip to the downtown Main library, I picked up Helen Keller's autobiography The Story of My Life. I happened to land on a page describing her love of books. She writes:

"I have thus far sketched the events of my life, but I have not shown how much I have depended on books not only for pleasure and for the wisdom they bring to all who read, but also for that knowledge which comes to others through their eyes and their ears. Indeed, books have meant so much more in my education than
in that of others, that I shall go back to the time when I began to read.

"I read my first connected story in May, 1887, when I was seven years
old, and from that day to this I have devoured everything in the shape of a
printed page that has come within the reach of my hungry finger tips . . .

"At first I had only a few books in raised print . . . but I read them
over and over, until the words were so worn and pressed I could scarcely make
them out" (copyright 1954, p. 90-93; originally published 1905).

Helen Keller dates the beginning of her "true interest in books" to the first time her teacher, Miss Sullivan, read to her the book "Little Lord Fauntleroy." She remembers the experience with such vivid clarity that I simply must share it here:

"I recall distinctly the time and place when we read the first chapters of the fascinating child's story. It was a warm afternoon in August. We were sitting
together in a hammock which swung from two solemn pines at a short distance from
the house. . . . As we hastened through the long grass toward the hammock, the
grasshoppers swarmed about us and fastend themselves on our clothes, and I
remember that my teacher insisted upon picking them all off before we sat down,
which seemed to me an unnecessary waste of time. . . . The warm sun shone on the
pine trees and drew out all their fragrance. The air was balmy, with a tang of
the sea in it. Before we began the story Miss Sullivan explained to me the things that she knew I should not understand, and as we read on she explained the unfamiliar words. At first there were many words I did not know, and the reading was constantly interrupted; but as soon as I thoroughly comprehended the situation, I became too eagerly absorbed in the story to notice mere words, and I am afraid I litened impatiently to the explanations that Miss Sullivan felt to be necessary. When her fingers were to tired to spell another word, I had for the first time a keen sense of my deprivations. I took the book in my hands and tried to feel the letters with an intensity of longing that I can never forget" (p.92).

Later in the book, we hear from the editor, John Albert Macy, who has studied Miss Keller's letters and as well as the reports and letters of her teacher, Miss Sullivan. With regard to Keller's unusual command of the English language, Macy writes:

"No innate genius can invent fine language. The stuff of which good style is made must be given to the mind from without and given skilfully. A child of the muses cannot write fine English unless fine English has been its nourishment. In this, as in all other things, Miss Sullivan has been the wise teacher. If she had not had taste and an enthusiasm for good English, Helen Keller might have been brought up on the 'Juvenile Literature,' which belittles the language under pretense of being simply phrased for children; as if a child's book could not, like 'Treasure Island' or 'Robinson Crusoe' or the 'Jungle Book,' be in good style" p.336.

I couldn't agree more, which is why I often seek out books that were published before 1960 to read to my children. It is also why I eagerly flip through Honey for a Child's Heart for excellent book recommendations. This week we have the treasured Ox-Cart Man by Donald Hall and Summertime from Porgy and Bess by Gershwin, Heyward/Wimmer. Lovely books. Rich, beautiful, transcending reads. Books to read over and over and over again.