Editor’s Note: The following article is a synopsis written by staff members and volunteers of the Cary Memorial Library in Houlton highlighting one of the suggested reading books, as determined by the staff.
This book, “SIX DOTS” by Jen Bryant is the inspiring story of the young French inventor of the Braille System of reading after he hurt his eye in his Dad’s harness shop with an awl.
As kind and helpful as his family was, Louis Braille was blind from five years old and he wanted so much to learn, to read, to be free of the darkness. He was sent to a special school, working hard so he could be allowed into the “library” there, but found the raised waxed letters cumbersome and tedious.
A military code was the impetus for young Louis to try the punched-paper writing on his own. Hours and hours were spent trying different ways to make words- not just approximating sounds. In the old school building Louis was to develop a fatal lung disease and was unwell even as he labored to make the greatest child invention for the blind which has only needed little tweaks and is still used today. Children may experience the system by touching raised dots in many public places today.
Illustrator Boris Kulikov has given the pages a decidedly nice old-fashioned flavor. The French words are pronounced in a guide and many further sources are listed.
The Cary Memorial Library is open Mondays-Wednesdays and Fridays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Saturdays
from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. For more information, call 532-1302.
