Helen Keller's Best Friend Belle

by Holly M. Barry, Jennifer Thermes (Illustrator)

Overview

Many know the story of Helen Keller's journey to learn to communicate. And many have heard of Anne Sullivan, the brilliant teacher who helped Helen understand. But have you ever heard about Belle the dog? In this new picture book biography of Helen Keller's early life, readers are introduced to her beloved dog, Belle, who is with Helen every step of the way!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807531990
Publisher:	Whitman, Albert & Company
Publication date:	09/01/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	53 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Holly M. Barry is a graduate of Wheaton College and has published numerous articles, crafts, and recipes in a variety of award-winning children's magazines. Her first children's book, The Witch and the Long Leather Bag, is a retold Irish fairy tale published in 2000. Holly currently resides in Barrington, Rhode Island.
Jennifer Thermes is an acclaimed children's book author and illustrator, who also creates maps for magazine and book publishing clients. Her books include The Iciest, Diciest, Scariest Sled Ride Ever! and Maggie&Oliver, or A Bone of One's Own. She lives in Newtown, Connecticut.

Editorial Reviews

"Helen Keller's life is summarized for younger children in this attractively illustrated biography that uses Keller's love for dogs as a unifying thematic thread." Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 2013

"Examples of Sullivan's teachings are supported by individual placards representing each letter/sign in the words Helen learned. As her world opened up, the warm illustrations become suffused with light." School Library Journal, September 1, 2013

"A short, simple text and watercolor illustrations, accented with lively and poignant touches, convey Keller's experiences and joy as the world progressively opens up to her. . . .Intriguing and inspiring, this will make readers want to learn more about Helen Keller." Booklist Online, August 29, 2013

From the Publisher

09/01/2013
PreS-Gr 2—Keller was a lifelong dog lover. When an illness at a young age left her blind and deaf, and feeling alone and afraid, she found solace in the family pets. Belle, an Irish setter, became her closest companionas she struggled to communicate and discovered the world around her through her lessons with Anne Sullivan. Examples of Sullivan's teachings are supported by individual placards representing each letter/sign in the words Helen learned. As her world opened up, the warm illustrations become suffused with light. The complete alphabet in Braille is inserted in the middle of the narrative and displayed on the endpapers in sign language. This brief introduction to Keller's early life concludes with a note on her love of dogs and a brief biography of her later years. A pleasant companion to David A. Adler's A Picture Book of Helen Keller (Holiday House, 1990).—Janet Weber, Tigard Public Library, OR

School Library Journal

Helen Keller's life is summarized for younger children in this attractively illustrated biography that uses Keller's love for dogs as a unifying thematic thread. The story focuses on Keller's childhood, summarizing her early life in rural Alabama and the arrival in 1887 of her teacher, Anne Sullivan. Keller's favorite dog, an Irish setter named Belle, is beside Keller as she learns from her teacher how to communicate with finger spelling. Teacher and student travel to Boston together, where Keller begins to learn how to speak, and she is able to call her dog to her when they return home to Alabama. This portion of the book is structured in a traditional picture-book format, using limited text and large-format illustrations that will work well for reading aloud to young children. The final few pages shift to more complex text describing additional dogs owned by Keller throughout her life as well as a summary of her college education, lecture tours and philanthropic work in her later years. This dual structure makes the book suitable both for young children and for older children looking for biographical information for school reports. While Helen Keller's love of dogs isn't an integral part of her personal biography, it's an interesting hook to draw children into the story of this fascinating, inspirational woman. (Picture book/biography. 4-10)

Kirkus Reviews