Overcoming Barriers

Today we celebrate Helen Keller's birthday and how she overcame the obstacles in her life. Helen Keller was born both deaf and blind. She traveled to many countries working for world peace and for the rights of deaf and blind people. Helen Keller never learned American Sign Language. Instead, she used fingerspelling by touch taught to her by her teacher, Anne Sullivan. To speak with her, a person fingerspelled into her hand. She could "read" fingerspelling with amazing speed.

Young readers can learn how people today are overcoming barriers with this new series from Enslow!

Did You Know That Louis Braille Could See When He Was Born?

Braille is named after the person who invented it. Louis Braille was born on January 4, 1809 in a town near Paris, France. He could see when he was born but when he was three years old, he had a terrible accident. One day, he went to his father's workshop and poked himself in the eye while playing with one of the very sharp tools. His eye became infected and the infection spread causing Louis to become blind.

When Louis was ten, he was sent to a special school for blind children. They had some books written in large capital letters that were raised so that the students could feel them and put them together to figure out the words. Louis read these books, but he thought he could figure out a better way to make books for blind people.

One day when Louis was twelve, a soldier named Charles Barbier visited the school. He told Louis and the other children about his invention called night writing that used raised dots and dashes to represent words. The soldiers used this system to talk to each other in the dark and without speaking so enemy soldiers could not hear them.

Louis thought he could change night writing to make a code for blind people. At fifteen years old, after many tries, Louis created a dot code. He called his system Braille. In 1829, when Louis was twenty years old, he published the first Braille book.

Today, blind people all over the world use Braille to read. Thanks to Braille, words, numbers, and musical notes are no longer just something people see. They are also things people can feel.

View a sample chapter here of What is Braille? from our Overcoming Barriers series which is available from Enslow, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, or your preferred vendor.