Caption: Helen at age eight, with Anne Sullivan
Helen Keller is famous. Many people know her life story. She was blind. She could not see. She was deaf. She could not hear. But Helen did not give up. She learned to read and write. She learned to speak. She even went to college. Helen had a very special teacher who helped her. The teacher's name was Anne Sullivan.
Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880. When Helen was a baby, she could see and hear. She was just learning to talk. Then when she was almost two years old, she got very sick. She had a high fever. The doctor thought she might die. There was no medicine to help Helen. The fever made her blind and deaf.
She got over being sick. But she couldn't see. She couldn't hear. She couldn't learn to say words because she couldn't hear her mother speaking.
Four years went by. Helen grew. She wanted to tell her parents things, but she couldn't talk to them. Helen would get upset. She would throw things. She would hit people. She would take things she wanted. Helen acted like a wild creature at times. Her mother wanted to help Helen.