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Youth Department
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Youth Department
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This department of the LowVis Bookstore features selected books for visually-impaired youth and their families.
Apt. 3 (Picture Books)
by Ezra Jack Keats
Reading level: Ages 4-8. School & Library Binding - 33 pages
(June 1999) Viking Childrens Books.
Wondering who's playing the harmonica in their apartment building, young Sam and his brother listen in the hallway but only hear the sounds of other tenants eating, arguing, and snoring. They finally find the source--a blind man--and a friendship begins. The well-paced text is illustrated with shadowy paintings that capably convey both the dingy surroundings and the brothers' affection.
Arthur's Eyes
by Marc Tolon Brown
Reading level: Ages 4-8. Hardcover | Audio Cassette (Book and Cassette) | Paperback. Little Brown & Co (Juv Pap); ; Reissue edition (June 1986)
Tormented by teasing, Arthur stops wearing his eyeglasses and mistakes the girls' bathroom for the boys' room.
Blind Men and the Elephant
by Karen Backstein
Reading level: Ages 4-8. Unknown Binding (October 1999) Econo-Clad
Books.
The Blind Men and The Elephant is a wonderfully written book. It tells the tail of six blind men who travel to their prince's palace in order to meet his new elephant. The students may ask, how can blind men meet an elephant? In this well written story, each blind man touches only part of the elephant. They go on to describe what the elephant feels like. For example: one blind men says "the elephant feels like a wall", another blind man describes the elephant as "the elephant feels like a snake". This is a great book for teaching the sense of touch to students grades K-3.
The Blind Colt
by Glen Rounds
Reading level: Ages 9-12. Holiday House; ; Reissue edition (July 1989)
CUSTOMER REVIEW: I have owned this book for more than 30 years now. It is one of those that I packed and repack through more than 16 moves. My children and my riding students have all read it and enjoyed it. The horses and horsemanship are realistic and true to life. The story is about try and heart and commitment.
The Blind Pony
Glen Rounds
Reading level: Ages 9-12. Paperback - 96 pages (July 1997) Little
Apple.
Facing the challenge of helping a friend deal with her pony's imminent blindness, the Pony Pals learn a lesson about taking care of a pony with special needs and about telling the truth.
Can You Feel the Thunder
by Lynn E. McElfresh
Reading level: Ages 9-12. Hardcover - 144 pages (June 1999)
Atheneum.
CUSTOMER REVIEWS:
A delight to read! Can You Feel the Thunder portrays the challenges and benefits of growing up with a deaf-blind sibling. McElfresh relays Mic Parson's trials with equal parts humor and tenderness. The result is a wonderful, down-to-Earth, special story. I predict a sudden upsurge in the number of hand-prints on window panes in neighborhoods everywhere. Well done!
Can You Feel The Thunder is a wonderful book that captures the essence of acceptance. Children and adults alike will never look at another person the same way again.
Child of the Silent Night
by Edith Fisher Hunter, Bea Holmes
(Illustrator).
Reading level: Ages 9-12. Hardcover (September 9, 1963). Houghton
Mifflin Co. Also in paperback
The story
of Laura Bridgman, the first deaf and blind child to be taught to
communicate with the outside world, some fifty years before Helen
Keller. "Children who like Helen Keller biographies will want to
read about similarly handicapped Laura Bridgman whose training,
begun in the 1830s, paved the way for Helen Keller's
education."
The story of Helen Keller is well-known
throughout the world, but few people know of Laura Bridgman. Also
blind and deaf, she was the first to break the pattern of early
nineteenth-century tradition, learning to read the alphabet and
leading the way for others to be freed of their
handicaps.
A Cobtown Christmas : From the Diaries of Lucky
Hart
by Julia Van Nutt, Robert Van Nutt
(Illustrator), Julia Van Nutt, ro Van Nutt, Robert Van Nutt
(Illustrator).
Reading level: Ages 4-8. Hardcover - 32 pages (October 13, 1998).
Doubleday Books.
Like entries in the tremendously popular Dear America series, this picture book for older readers, set in 1845, is written as a diary. The diarist is Lucky Hart, a resident of the picturesque village of Cobtown. The typeface resembles clear hand printing, and Lucky looks like an American Girls doll brought to life as she sits at her desk, writing with a quill pen. There is some astute marketing involved here. In fact, this is the first book in a planned series. But marketing aside, the book has a remarkable amount of charm. Lucky's voice is artless and natural, and the action flows smoothly, offering surprises and a tear-jerking happy ending as a mysterious blind man reunites with his lost dog. Great attention was paid to book design, with illustrations including full-color paintings as well as authentic-looking newspaper clippings, recipes, and other related items that Lucky has apparently glued into her diary. The final touch is a Cobtown Hymn, complete with music. With its good-hearted story and cheery folk art-style illustrations, this stands nicely above mundane holiday outpourings.
Crystal Moonlight
by Susan St. Thomas (Illustrator), David K.
Waldman
Reading level: Ages 4-8. Paperback - 48 pages 1st edition (May
1995) Rebecca House.
In the crystal moonlight when all questions, according to the legend of the forest, will be answered, Gale asks, "Why am I blind?" A book that is a must for all children aged 4-8. The message is one of hope and inspiration. A new fairy tale for our time
Do You Remember the Color Blue : And Other Questions Kids Ask About
Blindness
by Sally Hobart Alexander, J. Davis (Editor), J.
Carey (Editor)
Reading level: Ages 9-12. Hardcover - 80 pages (April 2000) Viking
Childrens Books.
A reader writes:
Blindness
is a fascinating mystery to children. Sally Hobart Alexander lost
her sight at the age of twenty-six, and although the experience was
devastating, eventually her life changed in positive ways she never
expected. In Do You Remember the Color Blue? Sally answers
thirteen thought-provoking questions that children have asked her
over the years about being blind. Each one addresses a different
aspect of her experience, from coping with her loss and dealing
with people who don't know how to treat a blind person to marrying
a man she couldn't see and being a blind mom.
Illustrated with snapshots from Sally's
life, and photographs of interesting gadgets, Do You Remember
the Color Blue? is a candid conversation that will change
children's ideas about what it means to be blind.
Follow My Leader
by James B. Garfield
Reading level: Ages 9-12. Puffin; ; Reprint edition (December 1994).
After Jimmy is blinded in an accident with a firecracker, he has to relearn all the things he used to know. With the help of a determined therapist, he learns to read Braille and to use a cane. Then he's given the chance to have a guide dog. Learning to work with Leader is not easy, but Jimmy tries harder than he ever has before.
Glasses-Who Needs 'Em
by Lane Smith
Reading level: Ages 9-12. Library Binding (October 1999)
Econo-Clad Books
A reader writes:
A boy who
doesn't want to wear glasses argues with his doctor, who asserts
that even space aliens and dinosaurs wear them. When the doctor
sneaks a pair in front of his eyes, the skeptical boy sees that all
the creatures really do wear glasses. The art, with its soft-edged
areas of deep color punctuated by thin-rimmed spectacles, is
perfectly suited to the story.
A whimsical tribute follows a young boy's
refusal to wear his new glasses and his doctor's listing of all the
variety of people--and things--that benefit from glasses.
In 29 fuzzy and 10 clear pictures, Lane
Smith brings into focus the glasses experience, neutralizing a
young boy's stubborn refusal to become a bespectacled spectacle.
"Smith demonstrates 20/20 vision for the sarcastic, zany humor that
children adore.
Google Eyes
by Willard Helmuth
Paperback - 92 pages (April 1994) Royal Fireworks
Pr.
Childrens Miracle Network Selection: Born prematurely, twelve-year-old Dorothy has worn thick glasses and has had trouble with her ankles all her life. An operation has helped her beyond braces and crutches although her ankles are still weak. Eyeglasses have improved her myopic vision caused by retrolental fibroplasia (scarred retina) which was brought about by the same oxygen that saved her newborn life. She becomes a heroine as she tests her theory that high altitude might cause visual impairment.
Grandpa's Eyes
by Sherry T. Vaughn, Sherry T. Vaughan, Ernie
Ross (Illustrator)
Reading level: Ages 9-12. Paperback (October 1996) Overmountain
Press.
COMMENTS FROM A YOUNG READER: I like the way he could play the violin through his eyes,and how he could see where he was going, and he could see the beautiful flowers and birds. He also taught his grandson how to see things in a different way like him. I think granpas are very smart and we can all learn from our own grandpas.
Hannah (Stepping Stone Books)
by Gloria Whelan, Leslie Bowman
(Illustrator)
Reading level: Ages 4-8. Library Binding - 63 pages Reissue
edition (January 1993) Random House
(Merchandising).
In this brief novel set in 1887 Michigan, nine-year-old Hannah, who is blind, tells of a turning point in her life when the new teacher comes to board with Hannah's stern family and eventually persuades them to let Hannah attend school. A touching, believable story with strong characterization and sense of place.
Helen Keller
by Margaret Davidson, Wendy Watson
(Illustrator)
Reading level: Ages 9-12. Paperback - 95 pages Reissue edition
(July 1997) Scholastic Paperbacks.
The best selling biography of Helen Keller and how, with the commitment and lifelong friendship of Anne Sullivan, she learned to talk, read, and eventually graduate from college with honors.
Helen Keller (Discovery Biographies)
by Stewart Graff, Polly Anne Graff
Reading level: Ages 9-12. Library Binding - 80 pages. 1st chelsea
edition (December 1992) Chelsea House Pub
(Library).
A biography of a blind and deaf woman who rose above her physical disabilities to international renown and who helped other handicapped individuals to live fuller lives.
The Hickory Chair
by Lisa Rowe Fraustino, Benny Andrews
(Illustrator)
Reading level: Ages 4-8 School & Library Binding - 32 pages
(February 2001) Arthur A. Levine.
Blind since birth, Louis uses all his senses to love his grandmother and feel her love for him. When she dies and Louis seems to have been forgotten in the family treasure hunt Gran arranged in lieu of a will, he must hold on to his knowledge of her love for him and his memories of her smell--"lilacs, with a whiff of bleach"--and her "molasses voice" to know he could never have been overlooked. It is a lifetime later, when Louis is a grandfather himself, that his conviction is affirmed by his "favorite youngest grandchild's" discovery in Gran's much-loved hickory chair.
Nothing is overdone in Lisa Rowe Fraustino's beautiful story that shows the profound power of "blind sight," Gran's term for Louis's ability to "see" so much.
Jo Makes a Friend (Portraits of Little Women)
by Susan Beth Pfeffer, Louisa May Little Women
Alcott, Marcy Ramsey (Illustrator), Laura Maestro
(Illustrator)
Reading level: Ages 9-12. Hardcover - 112 pages (July 1998)
Delacorte Pr.
Exuberant Jo March never sits still. Whether she's racing against boys or scribbling and acting in her latest play, Jo is always active and creative. So when Aunt March asks her to befriend Pauline Wheeler, Jo can't believe that the girl spends every day cooped up in her bedroom. True, Pauline is blind and utterly dependent on her governess, but her fear of life exhausts Jo's patience. The two girls simply have nothing in common--until they're caught in a snow squall that changes their lives.
Just People
by Helen Kitchen Branson.
Paperback (July 1997) Pocahontas
Press.
Documents the extraordinary of the human experience Just People is a unique autobiography that chronicles the love story and challenges of a blind couple in their struggle to be independent and productive parents despite prejuidice and hardship. This true story makes you assess your own personal strength and weigh it against the remarkable triumphs of truly inspirational people. It is well told in an interesting documentary style that includes snippets of the human experience that make you laugh and wonder. It would be excellent assigned reading for high school students, as well as adult readers.
Knots on a Counting Rope
by John Archambault (Contributor), Ted Rand
(Illustrator), Bill, Jr. Martin, J. Clarke
Reading level: Ages 4-8. Paperback - 32 pages Reprint edition
(September 1997)
Owlet.
In this poignant story, the counting rope is a metaphor for the passage of time and for a boy's emerging confidence facing his greatest challenge: blindness. "While classified as an Indian story, the love, hope, and courage expressed are universal." Suitable for reading to groups, this book "capture(s) both the drama and brilliance of vast southwestern space and the intimacy of starlit camp-fire scenes."--Booklist. Full color. American Bookseller's "Pick of the Lists."
Listen for the Bus: David's Story
by Patricia McMahon, John Godt
(Illustrator)
Reading level: Ages 4-8. School & Library Binding - 48 pages
(September 1995) Boyds Mills
Pr.
Sensitive color photographs show a young boy, blind and somewhat hearing-impaired, as he begins kindergarten. McMahon describes David's school experiences, as well as life after school with caring parents, as he goes horseback riding, pounds a hammer, plays with a neighbor's dog, and sits on his mother's lap. The text is written with great empathy and gentleness -- and no sentimentality.
Looking Out for Sarah
by Glenna Lang
Reading level: Ages 4-8 Hardcover - 32 pages (August 1, 2001)
Whispering Coyote Pr.
From Publishers Weekly:
Based on a real black Labrador retriever named Perry and his owner, Sarah Gregory Smith, Looking Out for Sarah by Glenna Lang tells about the relationship between a blind woman and her lead dog. Perry guides Sarah to their favorite grocery store, the post office and then a nearby school. Sarah tells the children, "Yes, she and Perry once walked from Boston to New York to show the world what a guide dog can do for a blind person." Lang's warm gouache paintings convey the trusting and affectionate friendship between the two.
Louis Braille : The Boy Who Invented Books for the
Blind
by Margaret Davidson
Paperback Reissue edition (May 1991). Scholastic
Trade.
Blinded at the age of 3, Louis Braille developed a superb memory that enabled him to do well in school. But that wasn't enough--Louis wanted to read. Finding the alphabet impractical, he invented the raised dot alphabet, Braille, now used throughout the world.
A Lucky Pair
by Frances Dinkins Strong
Reading level: A short chapter book to read to preschool and up. Learning Abilities Books (November 2002), 28 pages.
This is a heartwarming story of close friendship between a visually impaired girl and a Tennessee walking horse which she rescues. See a lesson plan to teach practical information about visual impairment and to improve reading vocabulary. Discuss how the child and horse helped each other. Discover why they were truly a lucky pair. The author has retinitis pigmentosa.
Lucy's Picture
by Nicola Moon, Alex Ayliffe
(Illustrator)
Reading level: Ages 4-8. Paperback - 32 pages (June 1997)
Puffin.
Lucy is determined to make a picture for her grandfather, who is blind, but she will need different supplies than the paint used by her classmates. Her grandfather is delighted with the resulting collage on which Lucy has pasted felt, sticks, feathers, and even a bit of her hair. Ayliffe's bright, distinctive illustrations create a cheerful mood for Moon's story.
Mandy Sue Day
by Roberta Karim, Karen Ritz
(Illustrator)
Reading level: Ages 4-8. Hardcover - 1 pages (September 1994)
Clarion Books.
Mandy Sue, a member of a large farm family, is blind. The story describes the things she hears, feels, smells, and tastes, as she enjoys a day spent grooming and riding her horse. Since Mandy Sue's blindness isn't mentioned until the very end, readers will undoubtedly find that her disability does not diminish her equestrian abilities in any way.
Melanie
by Carol Carrick, Alisher Dianov
(Illustrator)
Reading level: Ages 4-8. Hardcover (August 1996) Clarion Books;
.
Melanie is blind. When her grandfather tells her of a healer who may be able to restore her sight, she begs to go to him. Instead, the grandfather undertakes the difficult journey alone- -beyond a great forest and across a bridge, below which lives a troll who turns wayfarers into gulls and keeps their gold--to fetch the healer, and doesn't come back. Melanie sets out to find him, negotiating the forest with the help of an elk, and unaffected by the troll's magic because she can't see him.
Mystery of the Missing Map (The Adventures of the Northwoods, Book
9)
by Lois Walfrid Johnson
Reading level: Ages 9-12. Paperback - 158 pages (March 1994)
Bethany House.
A long-lost map holds the key and Kate is determined to find it! Kate, Anders and Eric have traveled to Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where Kate's Irish relatives live as caretakers of an enormous mansion. Kate is excited to meet her cousin Megan for the first time, and it turns out the two girls could be twins except something about Megan is very different. Will it keep Kate and Megan from being best friends? Soon after their arrival, Kate, Anders and Eric learn about a treasure map hidden somewhere on the grounds of the estate but when two shady-looking men are seen lurking around the mansion, Kate is worried they will steal the missing treasure. Danger trails the foursome as they race to find the missing map and the treasure it promises before the thieves catch up. What secrets lurk in the shadows of the mansion?
The Night Search
by Kate Chamberlin, Dot Yoder
(Illustrator)
Reading level: Ages 4-8 Paperback (January 1997) Jason &
Nordic Pub. Large Print. Other Editions:
Hardcover
Customer Reviewer:
The Night Search is an excellent classroom tool for discussion, geared to younger grade school children. The story is told in a way that sighted children can really relate to and understand. The frustrations, emotions and problems that a vision impaired child learns to overcome are presented in a universal way. Any child could relate their own daily challenges to the character, Heather, in this story. Teaching children the process of solving problems and letting them know they are capable of doing so - is the most valuable tool we can give them. This book really helps build on the qualities of self reliance and perseverance. It's wonderful to have a book available with such an uplifting message for children - and to have it available in twin digit format is really great!
Norman Saves The Day (Ready to Read)
by Andrew Clements, Donald Cook
(Illustrator)
Hardcover (May 2000) Simon & Schuster
(Juv).
A story for children about a heroic Labrador retriever.
Out of Darkness : The Story of Louis Braille
by Russell Freedman
Reading level: Ages 9-12. Hardcover - 88 pages (March 1997) (5
stars) Clarion
Books.
A biography of the modest Frenchman who, after being blinded at the age of three, went on to develop a system of raised dots on paper that enabled blind people to read and write. "An extremely well-written and informative book that tells about Braille's life and the development of his alphabet system for the blind. . . . An entertaining and fascinating look at a remarkable man."
A Picture Book of Louis Braille
by David A. Adler, John Wallner (Illustrator),
Alexandra Wallner (Illustrator).
Reading level: Ages 4-8. Paperback (September 1998). Holiday
House. Also in
hardcover.
Part of Adler's Picture Book Biography series, this tells the story of Louis Braille in a straightforward style and with many line-and-watercolor illustrations. A final page includes the braille raised-dot signs of the alphabet and numerals. Russell Freedman's fine biography Out of Darkness: The Story of Louis Braille is the first choice for reading aloud and for middle-grade readers, but Adler's account will arouse the interest of younger children and make them want to find out more.
Rainbow Joe and Me
by Maria Diaz Strom
Reading level: Ages 4-8. Hardcover - 34 pages 1 Ed edition
(October 1999) Lee & Low
Books.
Eloise likes to mix colors, such as red and white to paint fish, and red and blue to paint monkeys. Her friend Rainbow Joe tells Eloise he can mix colors too, but Eloise's mother says that a blind man can't mix colors. One Sunday, Rainbow Joe says he has a surprise for Eloise. When he begins to play his saxophone, big red notes, little yellow notes, and deep blue notes fill the air - and every color can be seen, loud and clear!
Safe at Second
by Scott Johnson
Reading level: Ages 9-12. Hardcover - 245 pages (June 1999)
Philomel
Books.
Todd Bannister's future is as bright as a new baseball. With a fastball destined for the major leagues, a shelf overflowing with trophies, college and pro scouts lined up at his door-not to mention Melissa, his beautiful girlfriend, and Paulie, his best friend and number one fan-Todd has it all. Then comes the line drive off a bat that strikes Todd square in the face. Now things are different. Life looks a lot darker when viewed through a glass eye. A Perfect book for a teenager going through a hard time.