Helen Keller: the story of my life

I decided to read this book because my aunt recommended it to me, and because my teachers kept bringing up Helen Keller's story all through my studies because they said she was inspiring and so was her teacher, Anne Sullivan, especially for language acquisition studies.

This book is divided between Helen's own narration of her own life since she was seven years old, and she wrote it when she was about 22 years old, and the second half of the book are letters that she wrote to her family and friends. This makes the story whole, and a lot easier to understand the whole picture of her life and how she perceived her surroundings and reality at the exact point when she lived it, for her narration does give a good account of everything but you see it from her grown-up point of view. I really enjoyed the letters because one can also notice how much she improved her syntax, vocabulary and writing style.

I achieved to read both parts of the book simultaneously but it was a bit complicated to find the exact dates and not get lost. Maybe the book is meant for the reader to focus exclusively on Helen's autobiography part and afterwards read her letters, but I think it's a lot better to read them simultaneously to get a better grasp of everything.

This book has been, without a doubt one of my favorite ones I've ever read. It's one that has changed my life and impacted me so deeply that I probably can't even realize it wholly just yet. It's inspiring for everyone because she overcame her disabilities and decided to learn about life and literature and languages and everything. She learned how to swim, how to play chess, she made fundraising events for the deaf-blind and achieved so many great things in her life despite being deaf and blind, and she always managed to keep a positive, humble and grateful attitude toward life, her teacher, her parents, her friends and nature. I learned to appreciate my life and my privileges and to love to learn new things and new lessons from everyone I meet. I learned that staying positive is so important, and that appreciating art is a beautiful thing to do, as well as appreciating nature.