George Sullivan does a wonderful job at displaying the struggle, drive and humanitarian work of Helen Keller through her lifetime. I appreciate the fact that the forward is written by Keller's great-grandniece. I felt as though it brought a personal touch to the book to have someone so closely related to Helen Keller share some private thoughts on a truly great American. I also appreciated the fact that Sullivan seemed to be real honest about the Helen's life. He included the fact that the movie, Deliverance (a silent movie about her life), "was a failure at the box office." Sullivan also mentions how Keller's opposition to WWI was criticized as was her support of for the 1948 presidential nominee, Henry Wallace.
Sullivan also does a great job of including those that played a major role in supporting Helen throughout her life. The two major supporters of Helen were Annie Sullivan (no mention of a relation to the author, I checked!) and Polly Thomson. It was nice to hear about how Annie helped teach Helen from a young age and to learn about how much she developed because of that constant support.
I would say that the books seemed to be accurate. I did not find any reason to question the author. The fact that the forward was written by someone in the Keller family leads me to believe that the book was approved by the family before publication. The author's biography page on the Scholastic (publisher) website states that Sullivan has "more than one hundred titles to his credit." Although Sullivan may not be an expert or historical researcher on Helen Keller, I feel as though I could read the passion for the subject through his words. There was no sign of generalizations or sensationalism in the book. I also think that Sullivan was objective about Helen Keller's life. He did show all the great and wonderful things Helen was involved in throughout her life. He also included moments that show that Helen is human like everyone else. He mentioned how she lost her temper when she was young and her "parents were unable to control her." He also mentions how some of her opinions (WWI) and support (Henry Wallace) were not very popular.
Overall, I greatly enjoyed this book. I would recommend this book for lower middle school aged children and up. This would be a great book to share with students that have disabilities so they can see how Helen Keller succeeded in life and was looked at as a national hero. ( )

This truly is Helen Keller's life told through pictures. This goes far beyond "The Miracle Worker" and tells of Keller's activism and wonderful contributions to the world. ( )

Helen Keller is an inspiration to anyone who reads her story. Being blind and deaf would be an incredible set bad for anyone, yet it seemed to propel her forward instead. She wanted to go to college, and instead of making excuses about her disability, she went. She goes on to become an accomplished author. I think what struck me most about Helen was her beauty. Even though she was blind, she took great care in her appearance. It was interesting that she had her eyes removed and glass one put in place. She believe that even disabled people should look nice, which I wholeheartedly agree with.

I LOVED this book. I like how it had the braille connections on each page, and really went in depth about her life at different points. I also liked how it had so many pictures so you could really get a sense of who Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan were and develop a more realistic view. ( )

This book provides the reader with many fantastic pictures of Helen Keller, that may help the reader connect more personally with Helen Keller. Additionally, this book shared a lot of interesting information that is not comonly known about Helen Keller. For example, Helen stared in her own silent movie, highly opposed war and was a big political figure, and worked with soldiers who were blinded in the war. Helen traveled to six continents in her lifetime, and made a difference in the lives of thousands. Helen Keller's story was known all over the world before internet or TV were available. ( )