Braille Literacy Month Reading List
January is Braille Literacy Month in honor of the birthday of Louis Braille (January 4, 1809). Use this month to learn more about Louis Braille, or maybe take the opportunity to learn some braille yourself! Even with technological advances providing resources like audiobooks and screen readers, braille is still as relevant today in the digital world as paper and pen are to sighted users. Paths to Literacy (https://www.pathstoliteracy.org/celebrate-braille-literacy-month/) has many excellent resources for patrons, including a video with a brief history of Louis Braille, and recommendations to websites to learn braille for users of all ages and abilities. Already fluent in braille? Be sure to request a free, monthly braille book, yours to keep, from the National Library Service’s new Braille-on-Demand program!
Seeing Home: the Ed Lucas story: a Blind Broadcaster’s Story of Overcoming Life’s Greatest Obstacles
A blind baseball broadcaster tells his personal and professional story. Lucas lost his sight in an accident in 1951 at age twelve. His love of baseball led him to a career broadcasting games and interviewing players. His love of his children led him to fight for custody after his wife left.
Book Length: 9 hours, 18 minutes
Digital Book Number: DB086568
Flying blind: One Man’s Journey out of Darkness
An account of the experiences of Joe Koury, who lost his sight suddenly at the age of nineteen and started a new life as a blind man. Strong language.
Book Length: 6 hours, 6 minutes
Digital Book Number: DB097425
Inside My World
Author reminisces about growing up as a blind child in Chicago during the 1940s and 1950s. Describes learning braille in grammar school, becoming a boy scout, and joining a fraternity at age sixteen.
Book Length: 4 hours, 19 minutes
Digital Book Number: DB072707
Do You Dream in Color? Insights from a Girl without Sight
Rubin, a blind mezzo-soprano opera singer born with perfect pitch and Leber’s Amaurosis--a disease that prevents the retina from developing--recounts her idyllic California childhood learning to read braille, use a cane, and ski and taking voice lessons. Highlights her struggles getting roles because of her disability. Young adult appeal.
Book Length: 8 hours, 18 minutes
Digital Book Number: DB075761
Louis Braille: Windows for the Blind
Biography of the inventor of the system of reading that opened the world of books to the blind. Though Braille’s revolutionary innovation remained unrecognized during his lifetime, it is now used in every language and in every country throughout the world. For high school and adult readers.
Book Length: 3 hours, 3 minutes
Digital Book Number: DB009596
Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law
The autobiography of the first deaf-blind graduate of Harvard Law School. Girma describes her childhood, world travels, development of a text-to-braille communication system, and time at Harvard Law, as well as the ways she uses her talents to advocate for those with disabilities. Commercial audiobook. 2019.
Book Length: 7 hours, 32 minutes
Digital Book Number: DB096188