Book Review #2: Miss Spitfire, Reaching Helen Keller By: Sarah Miller

Pages: 210
A dark childhood she's trying to forget, Annie Sullivan stands at a train station with the prospect of teaching a wild deaf and blind child a language. When she reaches the Keller residence she sees that this little beast has her whole family wrapped around her fingers. How will Annie teach this wild irrational child a language?

Sarah Miller had me in the first chapter. I have always been a Helen Keller junkie and I always thought that Annie Sullivan was a incredible women for reaching Helen. But I never comprehended how difficult it must have been to her. She had to reach a deaf and blind child. A child who couldn't see her or hear her. How could Ms. Sullivan reach know if she understood or if she was just mimicking. She couldn't talk to her, she couldn't sign to her, there was only one way to reach her but signing into her hands. But like it says above Helen had her whole family wrapped around her little fingers. If Annie tries any type of discipline on Helen she will have twelve different people packing her bags for her to send her back to Perkins School for the Blind. Annie must take Helen away from the house because Helen gets nothing but pampering. 

I LOVED this book. I wanted to reach into my book and shake Helen for giving her teacher such a hard time. I had always thought that it had to be kinda easy to reach Helen because every other book I read concerning her only went on about reaching her for about one or two chapters. But this is a 210 page book all about it. I couldn't believe how difficult it must have been. I personally would've given up and let Helen be a complete animal for the rest of her live. I couldn't believe that Ms. Sullivan kept going and going. I was so proud of her.

Sarah Miller can write! She wrote it so beautifully. I sailed through the book because it was way too good to put down for even five minutes. I loved it so much. Definitely in my top 20.

In closing I rated this book 5 out of 5. A good historical novel to read if you have nothing else to read. This book can be found at any library anywhere.