Taking Hold: My Journey Into Blindness - Hardcover

Sally Hobart Alexander was a grade-school teacher in Southern California in the late 1960s. Over the course of approximately a year, she became completely blind, as a result of a retinal hemorrhage. This is her own account of her journey from sight to blindness and the courageous and successful efforts she made to create a new life for herself. Alexander's moving and eloquent story is skillfully read by Suzanne Toren, whose voice is soft and understated. Her considerable experience presents the listener with a natural sounding reading, as though one were listening to the author herself. M.T.F. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Gr. 6-12. Alexander's story of her adjustment to blindness reads like a gripping suspense novel. She was a perfectly healthy third-grade teacher when she first noticed a black line flit across her eye and disappear. After a series of doctor appointments, temporary vision losses, and hospital stays, she gradually realized that at some point she would be completely blind. She began to learn Braille and eventually checked into a center to learn new life skills. Her emphasis is not on the hospitals and the rehab center but on coming to grips with her disability and all the accompanying emotions of fear, anger, despair, and acceptance. Her rocky relationship with her boyfriend is realistically and poignantly portrayed. Since the ending downplays the serious obstacles she has yet to face, the story is uplifting, and readers will find the pages turning quickly. Although intended for a much younger audience, Alexander's Mom Can't See Me (1990), in which life with a blind mother is described by her nine-year-old daughter and shown in photos by George Ancona, may interest readers of this autobiographical account. Susan DeRonne