Children's Biography Review: The Story of Helen Keller

When my children were in elementary school, I discovered a series of biographies for children called "The Value Tales." Over the years, I purchased over 30 of these books, which included biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Marie Curie, Jackie Robinson, Johnny Appleseed, Benjamin Franklin, Helen Keller and many other inspiring people. These books were a wonderful way to talk to my children about history, the values that made these people so admirable, their accomplishments, and some of the interesting things they had invented or created.

It's important for parents to know that these books were written specifically for children, so each one includes an imaginary character who "helps" the main character. Other than that, however, the biographies are based on fact.

Our daughters loved these books so much that, when they became adults with children of their own, these were the only books from their childhood that they still kept. They split their childhood collection between them. As luck would have it, one of our daughters married a young man who had also kept his favorite "Value Tales" from his childhood ... and his were different from the ones she had saved!

One of our daughters' favorite "Value Tale" was "The Value of Determination: The Story of Helen Keller." For those of you who may not be familiar with Helen Keller, she was a young woman who became ill as an infant and, afterwards, she was left both blind and deaf. For many years she was angry and almost uncontrollable. However, after her parents hired a talented teacher to help her, Helen Keller was eventually able to learn to communicate and, when she became a young woman, she even went to college! This story emphasizes how important it was for Helen to have an exceptional amount of determination in order to learn anything.

This is a wonderful biography to read to your children. Although "The Value Tales" are not chapter books, my children and I would read each one over a period of two or three nights. They always looked forward to hearing the next part of that night's story, and it made it much easier to get them to bed!

There are many types of biographies that you can find online and in bookstores for your children. The "Value Tales" are one choice, although others have been written since these were.

One of the aspects of the "Value Tales" that I have found most endearing is that they teach children about famous people, about history and about a wide variety of good values such as hard work, determination, compassion, honesty and love.

These are books that will inspire your children to have the kind of values you want them to have as adults.

Still curious about the Value Tales? Watch this video of the Value Tale about Helen Keller.