BIOGRAPHY BLOG #1: Out of Darkness The Story of Louis Braille

BIOGRAPHY BLOG #1: OUT OF DARKNESS THE STORY OF LOUIS BRAILLE

Bibliographic Data

Kielser, Kate. 1997. Out of the Darkness The Story of Louis Braille. by Russell Freedman. New York, NY. Clarion Books. ISBN: 0-395-77516-7

Plot Summary

Most everyone knows about the system of Braille, which is the reading and writing system for the blind. But did you know the story of Louis Braille who invented this system? Louis Braille who lived in France in the year 1821 wanted to read and write but as a blind boy was unable to do so as there was not yet a good system in place. This is the story of a young boy’s determination to create a way for the blind to read and write and come “out of the darkness.”

Critical Analysis

This book is very interesting and readable, it reads very much like a story, as it is the story of Louis Braille’s life. The book is attractive and caught my eye with the title and the watercolor drawing of a blind boy sitting on the corner bench in France. Once I read the first chapter I was hooked. The writer brings us into the story where a small boy sits in the dark of his dormitory punching holes across a page with the sharp point of a stylus. We learn this boy is Louis and he is a student at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in France and that he wasn’t born blind. The next chapter is titled The Accident and really interests the reader to find out more and keep reading.
The organization is very logical. After the introduction, it begins the story with Louis’s early childhood and leads into his time at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in France and eventually to his death. The most significant facts, people and dates are included. The reader learns about “embossed books” the cumbersome system of reading and writing developed by Valentin Hauy that was in place when Louis first goes to school. We also learn about Louis’s meeting with Captain Barbier, the inventor of “nightwriting” or sonography, which Louis uses as a model for his own system. The black and white pencil sketch illustrations complement the story of his life. The chapter titled, The Braille Cell, a diagram of the system of Braille and the Braille alphabet is shown. There is also a diagram of the grooved slate, sliding ruler, and stylus used to write sonograpahy and later Braille. The author Russell Freedman is a highly qualified writer whose acclaimed titles include three Newberry Honor Books: Lincoln: A Photobiography; Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life of Discovery and The Wright Brothers: How They Invented the Airplane as well as Kids At Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labor, an Orbis Pictus Honor Book.

Review Excerpt(s)

From School Library Journal
Grade 3-6.
An extremely well-written and informative book that tells about Braille's life and the development of his alphabet system for the blind. Freedman's gift for making his subjects both accessible and intriguing comes through wonderfully in this book. Readers learn not only about Braille and his struggle to communicate through the written word once he lost his sight, but also how long it took for his revolutionary innovation to become universally accepted. They also become aware of how isolated the blind were before his invention. Finely detailed pencil drawings and diagrams appear throughout the readable narrative. An entertaining and fascinating look at a remarkable man.?Melissa Hudak, North Suburban District Library, Roscoe, ILCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gr. 4^-8.
More than 170 years ago, a blind French boy at age 15 invented a system of raised dots on paper that allows the sightless to read and write. Without melodrama, Freedman tells the momentous story in quiet chapters in his best plain style, making the facts immediate and personal. At age 3, Louis Braille was blinded in an accident with a knife. From the age of 12, he worked doggedly, sometimes secretly through the night at a special school in Paris, punching dots on paper, trying to develop a simple code for the alphabet that the blind could read with their fingertips. Woven into the story is an awareness of how the blind child experiences the world, what he remembers. Tension mounts as he refuses to be discouraged by technical and bureaucratic setbacks, until eventually he proves his system to his school and finally to the world. The handsome book design is clear and open. A diagram explains how the Braille alphabet works, and Kate Kessler's full-page shaded pencil illustrations are part of the understated poignant drama. But what about documentation? Is the opening chapter partially fictionalized? No sources are given for the facts and quotes throughout the book, and there's no bibliography. Hazel Rochman

Connections

Other Biographies by Russell Freedman

Lincoln: A Photobiography
Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life of Discovery
The Wright Brothers: How They Invented the Airplane
Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade against Child Labor