Helen's Big World: The Life of Helen Keller
Helen's Big World: The Life of Helen Keller
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Little, Brown & Co.
Just the Series: Big Words   

Series and Publisher: Big Words   

Annotation: Provides a biography of Helen Keller (1880-1968), blind and deaf from birth, who became a prominent speaker, writer, and activist for progressive causes, including labor rights and the rights of the disabled.
Genre: [Biographies]
 
Reviews: 7
Catalog Number: #138352
Format: Perma-Bound Edition
Copyright Date: 2017
Edition Date: 2017 Release Date: 05/09/17
Illustrator: Tavares, Matt,
Pages: 1 volume (unpaged)
ISBN: Publisher: 1-484-74960-X Perma-Bound: 0-605-97131-5
ISBN 13: Publisher: 978-1-484-74960-9 Perma-Bound: 978-0-605-97131-8
Dewey: 921
Dimensions: 29 cm.
Language: English
Reviews:
School Library Journal Starred Review

K-Gr 4 In a format similar to Martin's Big Words (Hyperion, 2001), Rappaport uses quotations from Helen Keller to provide the framework for this picture-book biography. A great design, incorporating the words in large type, makes this book visually striking. Large scale paintings, rendered in watercolor, pencil, and gouache, are presented on one and a half or double pages. The full images, without borders, invite children into Helen's world, while showing how big it truly became. The opening endpaper showcases the pivotal "water" moment, with teacher Annie Sullivan's and the child's hands accompanied by the quotation, "We do not think with eyes and ears, and our capacity for thought is not measured by five senses." The narrative begins at Keller's childhood home, but expands out to describe her experiences at college, with public speaking, and in championing social causes. A series of excerpts from letters demonstrates her growing proficiency in writing. A dramatic spread shows the pupil and teacher in a boat, majestically cresting a wave, emphasizing what the youngster does experience more than what she does not. While there are many books available about Helen Keller for this age group, this title offers a unique and beautiful perspective on her life.— Lucinda Snyder Whitehurst, St. Christopher's School, Richmond, VA

ALA Booklist

This oversize picture book about Helen Keller focuses primarily on her innovative education by Anne Sullivan, but the presentation goes beyond Keller's youth to include her later work supporting pacifism, workers' unions, women's suffrage, civil rights, and opportunities for those with disabilities. The book's design makes good use of the spacious format. Appearing beside broad, horizontal illustrations, Rappaport's narrative is spaced out in poetic form. Each double-page spread also features a well-chosen quote from Keller's writing. Created in watercolor, pencil, and gouache, the sometimes dramatic illustrations show just how big Helen's world could be, picturing her in a college classroom, in a tree, on a stage, and in a factory with child laborers. The back endpapers illustrate the alphabet of hand signs that Sullivan taught Keller by making them within her hand. Readers intrigued by the Braille alphabet can feel the raised red dots on the jacket, which spell out the book's title. A worthwhile addition to biography shelves.

Horn Book

Rappaport covers the span of Helen's life from birth through her years with Annie Sullivan and after. The focus is on Helen, but readers get an acute awareness of Annie's sacrifices for her. Tavares's illustrations (ink, watercolor, and gouache) are bold and often in intense close-up, while quotes heighten the emotion of this stirring and awe-inspiring book. Reading list, timeline, websites. Bib.

Kirkus Reviews

Helen Keller's transcendent leap across the barriers of her blindness and deafness continues to inspire. Rappaport recounts the well-known events of Helen's childhood—the illness that left her blind and deaf as a toddler, her wild willfulness and the advent of Annie Sullivan's companionship and tutelage with liberating results. The wide and tall trim size of this work allows Tavares' full, close-up, edge-to-edge paintings to bring readers into the story and helps convey Helen's passion, energy and delight as she defeats her limitations. Generous white space given to the text and the large font for Helen's own words in every spread invites readers to come close to the subject, to understand Helen's thrill at learning about the world and to taste some of her intense purpose and passion. What Rappaport adds to the familiar story about Keller is that this determined woman was never inclined to be pigeonholed. Keller continued to hunger after information, to learn about the world and to talk about it: "She spoke against war…and for the right of women to vote and for justice for black Americans." Rappaport reveals that Keller had her critics, but once given a voice, she used it. There, one begins to realize, is the real story of Keller's impressive life. A magisterial account. (author's & illustrator's notes, timeline, sources) (Picture books/biography. 6-10)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Punctuating the narrative with excerpts from Keller's own writing, Rappaport and Tavares, previously paired on Jack's Path of Courage, take a sweeping approach to their picture book biography, beginning when Keller was a healthy baby ("The beginning of my life was simple and much like every other little life") and ending with her death at 87, when she had long been a national icon and social activist ("my love for America is not blind. Perhaps I am more conscious of her faults because I love her so deeply"). While Annie Sullivan remains a pivotal figure (many key scenes from The Miracle Worker are replayed), it's refreshing to see Keller granted a greater sense of agency, even if the book leans toward hagiography. There is one exception: a single image that appears right before Sullivan's arrival, in which Helen's mother struggles to comfort her writhing, disconsolate daughter. Dark and almost demonic, it conveys instantly both the catastrophic nature of Helen's disabilities and the steely will that raged to be unleashed. Ages 6-8. Agent: Faith Hamlin, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. Illustrator's agent: Rosemary Stimola, Stimola Literary Studio. (Oct.)

Bibliography Index/Note: Includes bibliographical references.
Word Count: 2,189
Reading Level: 4.9
Interest Level: 1-4
Accelerated Reader: reading level: 4.9 / points: 0.5 / quiz: 154887 / grade: Lower Grades
Reading Counts!: reading level:3.7 / points:2.0 / quiz:Q59370
Lexile: AD770L
Guided Reading Level: T
Fountas & Pinnell: T

This "magnificent account" (New York Times) of Helen Keller's life presents a moving portrait of one of the world’s great luminaries. 

When Helen was nineteen months old, an illness left her unable to see or speak. She struggled to make herself understood, and often lashed out when she couldn't. With the help of a teacher named Annie Sullivan, she learned to spell words with her fingers, opening her world immeasurably. She soon learned to write and to read Braille, and even to read lips by touch; with Annie by her side, she went to college, and wrote an autobiography that shared her story with the world. She was lauded as a genius and became an advocate for people with disabilities, workers' rights, women's rights, and racial justice. 

With her signature style of accessible prose laced with stirring quotes, Doreen Rappaport brings to life Helen Keller’s poignant narrative in this addition to the Big Words series of picture book biographies. Acclaimed illustrator Matt Tavares beautifully captures the dynamism and verve of Helen’s life and legacy, making Helen's Big World an unforgettable portrait of a woman whose vision for innovation and progress changed America—and the world—forever.

★ “Stirring and awe-inspiring.” The Horn Book
★ “While there are many books available about Helen Keller for this age group, this title offers a unique and beautiful perspective on her life.” School Library Journal
“No child could read this book without imagining herself, as Helen put it, 'in the still, dark world in which I lived.' But it makes Helen’s path to self-expression all the more resonant and inspiring.” New York Times
"A worthwhile addition to biography shelves." Booklist

Don’t miss these other titles in the Big Words series!
Ellen Takes Flight: The Life of Astronaut Ellen Ochoa
Ruth Objects: The Life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Wilma's Way Home: The Life of Wilma Mankiller
Abe’s Honest Words: The Life of Abraham Lincoln
Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


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