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Showing 81 - 100 of 532 items
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 Grace Halloran. 1993
Recounts the life of Californian Grace Halloran, who was diagnosed at age twenty-three with retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic eye disorder…
leading to blindness. Learning that her newborn son could also become blind, Halloran dedicated her life to discovering ways to preserve and strengthen sight. 1993.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.A fictionalized biography of William Moon. Unable to enter the Ministry after he became completely blind at the age of…
twenty, he determined that he would devote his life to blind care and welfare. In the course of teaching, he developed the embossed script for which he is famous, and which he used to print books, magazines and pictures. 1992.By Auldham Roy Petrie. 1978
Joseph Brant followed his father as an Iroquois chief, and, like his father, swore loyalty to the British in North…
America and was received by British royalty in London. Petrie chronicles the life of Brant, from his childhood and youth, to his first battles as an Iroquois warrior and his crucial aid to the British during the American War of Independence. Grades 5-8. 1978.By Victoria Nolan. 2014
Victoria Nolan is a motivational speaker, advocate for people with disabilities, Paralympian and special education teacher. Having wanted to teach…
since she was a young child, her dreams were shattered when she went blind; not because of her disability but because of other people’s preconceived ideas about what she could and could not do. Victoria took up rowing to counter her depression over losing her sight, and made it onto Canada’s National Rowing Team. This is her personal story of triumph over adversity. 2014.By Ruth Silver. 2012
Ruth Silver was a silent, frightened child with undiagnosed vision loss, which she later learned was retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a…
progressive eye disease. Even after losing her hearing, she refused to surrender to the darkness and silence. Ruth founded the Center for Deaf-Blind Persons in Milwaukee, a nonprofit agency dedicated to helping others living with the double disability of deaf-blindness. Includes sex and violence. c2012.By Hugues De Montalembert. 2010
Blinded in an attack in his New York home in 1978, de Montalembert, then a filmmaker and painter, was violently…
forced out of his intensely visual world. In this raw memoir, he navigates the environs of Manhattan and, not much later, Bali and Greenland, with new confidence and ability. He's also painfully honest about the affects of his blindness, refusing the comfort of standard tropes about spirituality but finding wonder in the kindness of absolute strangers and isolation from those closest to him. Some descriptions of violence, some strong language. 2010.By James Tyman. 1989
James Tyman is a young Native man who grew up with racism, turned to crime and drugs, and repeatedly ended…
up in jail. At age 24, while serving a 2 year prison sentence, James wrote this record of his own journey to self-discovery. Strong language. 1989.By Adam Ockelford. 2008
Music professor Ockelford, who specializes in working with children with disabilities, offers a biography of British pianist Derek Paravicini. Discusses…
Paravicini--who was born prematurely, autistic, and blind--teaching himself to play the keyboard at age two and developing his musical talents, first at home and then in public. 2008.By Beth Brant. 1995
A hundred years of Native North American history emerges from the lives of fifteen Elders of Tyendinaga, in conversation with…
Mohawk writer Beth Brant. School teachers, domestic workers, miners, civil servants and factory workers people these accounts with the grist and joy of everyday lives spanning the 20th century. c1995.By Christy Jordan-Fenton, Margaret Pokiak-Fenton. 2010
Taunted and humiliated by Raven, the unkind nun in charge of the young Inuit girls at her residential school, Margaret…
is willing to endure almost anything as long as she can learn to read. The unpleasant chores don’t daunt her, but the teasing of other students and the unfair punishments do. When she is the only girl forced to wear ugly red stockings, however, Margaret has enough, and fights back. Followed by “A stranger at home” (DC41414). Grades 3-6. 2010.By Beatrice Mosionier. 2009
Mosionier's memoir in part answers the question: how much of her novel, "April Raintree" (DC37700), is based on her own…
life? She recounts a life of great loss: of family, innocence and dignity. She also shares how she has found fulfilment - artistically, politically, and personally - and describes the recovery of her bond with her mother, one nearly destroyed by the family's separation in 1952. Explicit descriptions of sex, explicit descriptions of violence and some strong language. c2009.By Elizabeth MacLeod. 2004
A biography of Helen Keller, "America's First Lady of Courage", and the people and places that figured prominently in her…
life. Includes many well-known facts about Keller's life, and reveals the struggle, sadness, and success Keller experienced over the years. Contains a detailed time line, a useful index, and a list of places to visit. Grades 3-6. 2004.By Barbara Hager. 1996
Metis author Hagar focusses on 16 aboriginal people from across Canada. Coming from many different walks of life, those profiled…
have made contributions to the Canadian cultural, artistic, social, athletic or political fabric of the country. Among those portrayed are Elijah Harper, Shania Twain, and Ted Nolan. 1996.By Peter Michael O'Neil. 2016
Gerry St. Germain was an air force pilot, undercover policeman and West Coast chicken farmer. Business gave way to politics,…
and in 1988 he became one of a tiny number of Aboriginal Canadians named to a federal cabinet. From the Brian Mulroney era to that of Stephen Harper, St. Germain remained a trusted confidant of prime ministers and a crucial and often daring behind-the-scenes broker in bringing warring factions together. But he is most proud of his later efforts, when he spearheaded major Senate reports on key issues like land claims and on-reserve education. That role reflected St. Germain’s profound determination to help people who are still dealing today with the brutal legacy of residential schools and the paternalistic Indian Act. 2016.By Stephen Kuusisto. 2018
In a lyrical love letter to guide dogs everywhere, a blind poet shares his delightful story of how a guide…
dog changed his life and helped him discover a newfound appreciation for travel and independence. Stephen Kuusisto was born legally blind-but he was also raised in the 1950s and taught to deny his blindness in order to "pass" as sighted. Stephen attended public school, rode a bike, and read books pressed right up against his nose. As an adult, he coped with his limited vision by becoming a professor in a small college town, memorizing routes for all of the places he needed to be. Then, at the age of 38, he was laid off. With no other job opportunities in his vicinity, he would have to travel to find work. This is how he found himself at Guiding Eyes paired with a Labrador named Corky. In this vivid and lyrical memoir, Stephen Kuusisto recounts how an incredible partnership with a guide dog changed his life and the heart-stopping, wondrous adventure that began for him in midlife. Profound and deeply moving, this is a spiritual journey, the story of discovering that life with a guide dog is both a method and a state of mind. 2018.By Joe Jackson. 2016
Black Elk, the Native American holy man, is known to millions of readers around the world from his 1932 testimonial,…
"Black Elk Speaks". Cryptic and deeply personal, it has been read as a spiritual guide, a philosophical manifesto, and a text to be deconstructed--while the historical Black Elk has faded from view. Jackson provides the definitive biographical account of a figure whose dramatic life converged with some of the most momentous events in the history of the American West. Born in an era of rising violence, Black Elk killed his first man at Little Big Horn, witnessed the death of his second cousin Crazy Horse, and traveled to Europe with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. Upon his return, he was swept up in the traditionalist Ghost Dance movement and shaken by the massacre at Wounded Knee. But Black Elk was not a warrior and instead chose the path of a healer and holy man, motivated by a powerful prophetic vision that haunted and inspired him, even after he converted to Catholicism in his later years. Winner of the Spur 2017 best western biography award. Winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography. 2016.By Mara Faulkner. 2009
A Benedictine nun reminisces about her father’s gradual loss of sight from retinitis pigmentosa and the effects his condition had…
on her Irish American family. She interweaves her recollections of growing up in North Dakota with meditations on the metaphorical meaning of blindness in our culture. Some strong language, some descriptions of sex and some descriptions of violence. c2009.By Patrick Henry Hughes, Patrick John Hughes, Bryant A Stamford. 2008
Patrick Henry Hughes was born with a rare genetic disorder that left him without eyes and physically disabled, but he…
was also blessed with exceptional musical talent, able to play the piano at the age of two. Now, at age nineteen, he is a nationally known pianist, singer, and trumpeter who has performed at the Kennedy Center. But he's best known for playing in the University of Louisville marching band, while his devoted father pushes him in formation in his wheelchair. With determined optimism and courage, Hughes has made "I am potential" his mantra and defied the impossible at every turn. 2008.