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Showing 1 - 20 of 50 items
By Jane Poulson. 2002
Autobiography of Dr. Jane Poulson, the first blind person in Canada to become a practising doctor. Poulson suffered from diabetes…
and because of the disease, lost her sight and then experienced severe heart problems. Nonetheless she was an extremely accomplished doctor, published widely in leading medical journals, and showed great courage and endurance to all who knew her. She wrote this book during the last two years of her life. 2002.By Joe Fiorito. 1999
Fiorito recalls his life growing as a poor, Italian boy in 1950s Fort William, Ontario. He shares memories of his…
father, and of the stories his father told about his own family. Strong language. c1999.By Derek Lundy. 2006
Author Derek Lundy, bearing in mind that the name "Lundy" is synonymous with traitor in Ulster, delves into the lives…
of ancestors Robert Lundy, Protestant governor of Derry in 1688, William Steel Dickson, a Protestant preacher of the early 19th century who advocated resisting the English, and Billy Lundy, born in 1890 and the embodiment of what the Ulster Protestants became - a tribe united in their hostility to Catholics and to the prospect of an independent Ireland. 2006.By Edna Arseneault-McGrath. 2005
Acadian-born, fifth in a family of thirteen, and born blind, Jean-Paul Losier has overcome many obstacles to achieve success. Attaining…
Bachelors of Arts and Education degrees and a law degree, known as 'the man who knew the books by heart', Losier spent 24 years teaching while also cultivating the family farm. He is known as a tireless volunteer in his community and on behalf of the blind and deaf-blind, and as a man who is dedicated to the betterment of all mankind. 2005.By Alex MacCormick, David Blunkett. 1995
Born in 1947 in the slums of Sheffield, England, David Blunkett has never let blindness be more than an inconvenience…
to him, whether at university or in the British House of Commons as an MP. In this autobiography, he discusses his life, politics, and, most of all, his beloved guide dogs, Ruby, Offa, and Lucy. 1995.By Sean Wilsey. 2005
Sean Wilsey's memoir of growing up in 1980s' San Francisco. Despite a privileged background, family neglect supplies him with more…
than his share of neuroses, narcissism, and self-destructive behaviour, which lead him ultimately to a boarding school in Italy, where he turns his life around. Strong language and some descriptions of sex and violence. 2005.By Rachael Scdoris, Rick Steber. 2006
Twenty-one-year-old author discusses her Oregon childhood, her experience with low vision, and her determination to become a professional sled dog…
racer. Describes being introduced to the sport by her father, becoming the youngest athlete to win a five-hundred-mile race, and the obstacles she overcame to qualify for the Iditarod. 2006.The author recounts her journey to Tibet, where she opened a school for blind children to teach them the Tibetan…
braille system she devised while a University of Bonn student. Tenberken describes losing her sight at age twelve, her education, establishing her school, and founding the organization Braille without Borders. 2003.By David Layton. 1999
David Layton shares his memories of a childhood during which he was shuttled from country to country, guardian to guardian.…
His parents, poet Irving Layton and his wife Aviva, largely ignored their son and allowed others to be responsible for his upbringing. Layton's story moves from Canada to London to Greece to Morocco and then back to London again, and includes stories about not just his family but also about his godfather, the poet and performer Leonard Cohen. 1999.By Jennifer Rothschild. 2002
At the age of fifteen, Jennifer Rothschild confronted two unshakable realities: blindness is inevitable, and God is enough. The popular…
author, speaker, and recording artist offers poignant lessons that illuminate a path to freedom and fulfillment. With warmth, humour, and insight, Jennifer shares the guiding principles she walks by, and shows you how to walk forward by faith into God's marvellous light. 2002.By Gib Twyman, Craig MacFarlane. 1997
Athlete Craig MacFarlane was blinded in an accident at age 2, and grew up to become a champion sprinter, internationally…
acclaimed wrestler, downhill skier, and a regular in the water skiing spectacular at Florida's Cypress Gardens. Craig now makes over 200 appearances a year - everything from children in a classroom setting to 3-time speaker at the Republican National Convention. 1997.By Andrew Whitehouse. 1990
Carolyn James is a talented painter, especially of landscapes. She is completely blind. In a full and varied life she…
was constantly frustrated by failing sight. Only when her blindness became total did her imagination and her daughter's paint-box free her to make pictures. Within a year her work was exhibited, and soon she appeared on television and radio. She began writing poems, which became song lyrics, and now in her 40s is a creative artist in both media. 1990.By Bob Smith. 2002
At age ten, Smith stumbled onto a line from "The Merchant of Venice" and found a window through the language…
of Shakespeare to view the world. When he was a teenager, the American Shakespeare Festival moved into Stratford, Smith's hometown, and Smith became Hamlet's dresser. A few years later, he left home to travel with the Shakespeare Festival, and in the decades since, he has taught the plays in universities, acting schools, prisons, and senior centres. 2002.By Frances Lief Neer. 1994
Neer suffered from low vision throughout her life and eventually became blind. Just as she lost her sight totally, her…
adult son died and left her his 13-year-old daughter to raise. Neer's story is about coping - how to travel, shop, socialize, read and write, and run a household - and she describes attending plays, cooking for dinner parties, becoming street savvy, and, literally, dancing in the dark. 1994.By Ryan Knighton. 2006
Knighton, who teaches at Capilano College in Vancouver, began losing his sight early enough in life that milestones such as…
his first driving lesson and his first relationships with girls were anything but ordinary. Experiences in adulthood covered (often humorously) in this memoir include attending college in Vancouver, teaching English in South Korea, and getting married. Canada Reads 2012. 2006.By Michel Tremblay, Linda Gaboriau. 2006
In Tremblay's autobiographical work, young Michel is trying to understand his world, often observing the other nine members of the…
family from under the dining-room table. His mother Nana dominates these memories, but the cherished moments shared with his father, along with his prickly paternal grandmother and irascible aunt, also shape his views. Neighbours, from whom the family haplessly tries to hide their poverty with dignity, brothers, and an uncle complete the cast of characters. Some strong language. 2006, c2002. (Plateau Mont-Royal Chronicles ; 4) Uniform title: Bonbons assortis.By Jacques Lusseyran. 1964
With the help of his friends he found that the "cure" for blindness was to "immerse oneself in a life…
that is as real and difficult as the lives of others". With the war Jacques, aged sixteen, decided to organize his school friends into resistance and was eventually betrayed to the Germans, interrogated by the Gestapo and incarcerated for fifteen months in Buchenwald. 1964. Uniform title: Et la lumière fut.By David J Pelzer. 2001
"A Man Named Dave" is the conclusion to Dave Pelzer's trilogy of memoirs about how he has overcome his abusive…
childhood. With extraordinary generosity of spirit, Dave takes us on his journey confronting his past. In a dramatic reunion he confronts his father and ultimately faces the mother who so brutally abused him. Finally Dave finds the courage to break the chains of the past and learn to love, trust and live for the future. Sequel to "The lost boy". Strong language and some descriptions of violence. 2001.By David J Pelzer. 2000
A man recounts the years of torture and starvation that he experienced as a child at the hands of his…
alcoholic mother. Chronicles the incidents of maltreatment, his ultimate rescue from the abusive home, and his recovery. Followed by "Lost boy" (EB69381). For junior and senior high readers. 2000.By Lisa Fittipaldi. 2004
When Lisa Fittipaldi went blind at age 47, she descended into anger and denial, until a child's watercolour set, thrown…
down like a gauntlet by her frustrated husband, opened the door to a new life. In this memoir, she paints a vivid picture of the perceptual and emotional darkness of her vision loss and her arduous journey to reclaim her life. 2004.