Reviews - The Story of My Life

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487 reviews for:

I read this story to my fifth grade class and they loved it. Much of the language that Helen used was pretty sophisticated for my students to understand. It gave us a great opportunity to discuss unfamiliar and challenging words. However, there were so many themes that continued to surface in her life that we were able to appreciate along the way.

Her ability to persevere despite the obstacles was quite amazing. There is much we can all learn from Helen Keller and I have no regrets sharing this wonderful story to my class.

readfineprint's review against another edition

3.0

I find Helen Keller fascinating so I picked up this old copy of The Story of My Life in my attic. I had to read it in junior high I think. If you are interested in Helen Keller, this is a good book to read to learn more about her life.
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The first half is about Helen as a little girl. Blind and deaf from a year of age, Helen had to not only learn words, but she had to learn that words had meaning. Her teacher, Anne Sullivan, had to figure out how to pierce the darkness of Helen’s mind. If you aren’t familiar with Helen’s moment of catharsis at the water pump, you should read this book or see the movie. That moment is what fascinates me the most. Can you imagine realizing that words, thoughts, and essentially LIFE has meaning, in a sudden jolt of understanding? It is unbelievable.
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I’m so inspired by Helen’s drive and intelligence to learn how to read, speak, and eventually graduate from college, but the second half of this book is not as interesting to me. Helen takes a chapter to describe her favorite books, her favorite people, and her favorite things about nature. But of course the idea that Helen can write a book at all is amazing, and it is what makes it so special.

lemonadee's review against another edition

4.0

First heard of Helen Keller from a Developmental Psychology course. I decided to read this book after knowing that she supported eugenics. I wanted to see if I can extract from her experiences why she supports eugenics. After reading the book, I think her opinion was more influenced by the prejudice at that time since she supports people with physical defects but is okay with euthanasia of mentally retarded.

Anyway, about the book, it's my first time reading a book by a blind-deaf person so I didn't expect how descriptive it was. She talks just like a normal person. I can say that she's more descriptive than me lol. That shows how good her teacher is and her education. She also has a lot of friends who supports her and she recognizes this privilege to help other blind and/or deaf person. Helen Keller is a wonderful person and a great inspiration.

abentz's review

3.0

Unfortunately this was not the kind of memoir I was expecting. As a speech therapist, I've always been interested in Helen Keller and her story. While this book still provided ample information about her, it seemed to focus more of vivid descriptions of the world around her instead of facts about herself. I found myself growing a little bored throughout the story, as over half the book were letters that Helen had written to people throughout her life. The letters showed an even deeper side to Helen which I loved, but it was impossible to keep all the people she wrote to straight, which made things incredibly confusing. I wish I could say I like this more, but unfortunately it fell a little flat for me.

astro152's review against another edition

2.0

informative slow-paced

greeniezona's review against another edition

4.0

Earlier this year, Andrew was heading to pick up Jefferson in Chicago, and wanted a book to entertain him in the car on the way home. I handed him a children's biography of Helen Heller that I had loved as a child. Evidently Jefferson loved it, too. So for our Christmas road-trip I was sure to include a biography of her teacher, Anne Sullivan, also from my childhood, in my bag of tricks. These things, combined with coming across references to Helen Keller as a progressive icon in her adult life, made me grab this memoir for my stack of prospective New Year's Eve reads.

As it turns out, Keller wrote this autobiography at the age of 22, so it didn't get me any closer to understanding her activism in later life. But this slim book is still remarkable for the joy in life that leaks through the print, and then conversely her intensely introspective self-criticism for limitations that I feel NEARLY EVER OTHER HUMAN BEING HAD AT HER AGE.

I am happy to have read it and will be glad to share it with Jefferson, but I think I'll wait a few years, so the descriptions of her prep school and college studies will be more relatable.