Two Amazing People

By Simone Shupper

          I will tell you about two fantastic stories I read. I will compare and contrast “The Value of Determination – The Story of Helen Keller’’ by Ann Donegan Johnson and “The Value of Self Discipline – The Story of Alexander Graham Bell by Ann Donegan Johnson.

There are some similarities in these two historical stories. Both stories are non-fiction.  First of all,

in “The Story of Helen Keller,” Helen becomes deaf and blind.  In “The Story of Alexander Graham Bell,” his mother becomes deaf.  Secondly, both characters meet and become friends.  Third of all, they both were determined to communicate (Alexander invented the telephone and Helen learned to speak).  Lastly, Helen Keller and Alexander both taught people things.

Although both stories have a lot of similarities, there are specific differences.  In “The Story of Helen Keller,” she had to have a special teacher instruct her how to speak and hear to help her communicate while in “The Story of Alexander Graham Bell,” Alexander created tools to help people communicate who were far away from each other.  In “The Story of Helen Keller,” she learns how to use the telephone but doesn’t invent anything.   In addition, she teaches the King of England how to read lips (that is how she knew what the other person was saying).  In “The Story of Alexander Graham Bell,” he invented the telephone and made a machine that can test your hearing.

In conclusion, both stories were very fascinating to read. I enjoyed when in “The Story of Helen Keller,” she gets to teach someone very important how she learned to talk. I thought it was extraordinary that in this story she once put on a show. For “The Story of Alexander Graham Bell,” he invented the machine called the telephone which a lot of people now use today. I also enjoyed this story because it was very interesting when he made the longest telephone call which was eight miles away. My favorite story was “The Story of Alexander Graham Bell” because he helped teach deaf people and work on his experiments. He also experimented on some things that became very useful in today’s times.